The Bananaversary and the Legend of Nails

May 16, 2019

WHEN: 05/14/2019
QIC: Banana Split
PAX: Nails, OPEC, Bells, Knope, Justice, LowTide, FunnyMoney, CoolJ, Boucher, Sodapopinski

This workout marked my 1 year anniversary of F’ing 3.

Warm-Up

The usuals, with some burpees thrown in for good measure.

Main Event

The crew ran a route through Forest Hills, to Orchard Park, through the Compare Foods / Check Cashing Place / HBO’s “The Wire” Durham Location shopping center, back through Forest Hills. We stopped every 90ish seconds to bust out a merkin set. Extended plank holds while waiting on the 6 added to the degree of difficulty. 300 merkins and ~2.5 miles completed.

Mary

I generously included the warm-up burpees to bump the post-run count to 315 merkins, thus leaving us 50 more to hit 365. We did the final 50 in quick sets of 10 with sets of 10 LBCs IC in between.

COT

For those of you that don’t post in Durham, Nails is 63 years old and a regular. He grinds out all of the work with a bit of a limp, a great attitude, and surprising efficiency considering his age. I love the guy because he always cracks a good joke, because I find his effort inspiring, and because he once brought me a note from his mom asking that he be excused from all burpees.

Before name-o-rama, he made a comment about “when you get old” — which is par for the course for Nails. He talked about feeling heavier, skin sagging, body dragging, etc.

And then he took off his leg.

Seriously.

I was flabbergasted. Just like everyone else.

Nails has a below-the-knee prosthetic on one of his legs. I never knew it and very few people did.

Turns out he lost his leg in a train accident when he was 15. He said that all that he’s ever wanted to was be a part of the group and to be treated like everyone else. He said that he’s found that in FE and that he’s having more fun with F3 than he ever has had in his life.

It was an F3 high water mark for me and presumably the rest of the PAX.

Nails is 63. He has a prosthetic leg. And he does the work with a smile every damn day.

YOU HAVE NO EXCUSES.

Notes

Thanks to Bells for inviting me out.
Thanks to Soda for welcoming me and leading a great workout my first post.
Thanks to Knope for serving as my F3 spirit guide.
Thanks to Nails for setting the bar.
Thanks to all of you for keeping this thing going.

NAILS!