The Falcon is one of my favorite AOs.  It is close to home and I have probably Q’d there more times than any other site aside from my home arena, The Big Dance.  What I really like about the site is you get a great blend of Durham and Chapel Hill guys given the site’s proximity to the border.  It’s on a Friday, the start of the weekend, and guys are usually ready to get after it.  The only thing that stinks about it is 2-Ply is always there.  Just kidding 2-Ply.  I love you, man.  There is literally no reason to ever pick on 2-Ply.

2 PAX did solo ECs, respectively, and 23 showed up for the main event.  It is so great to see so many PAX making the time for F3.  People talk a lot about not having time to do things.  It becomes sort of a pissing contest and we have all heard the refrain: I’m so busy because I have X, Y, and Z to do and no time to do it. Last week I worked 120 hours.  Blah blah blah.  My take on this is that people who suck at time management use the word “busy” all the time and try to act like they have no time to do stuff when the root cause is they are procrastinators who waste time doing dumb stuff.  Or they may own their own business or something (not to disparage anyone who works a ton and is actually busy; I realize I’m on a slippery slope) and have a legitimate claim to time scarcity!

However, my point is this:  A lot of reputable publications have published recently on the idea of buying time to promote happiness.  Put another way, this means you pay people to do stuff to save yourself time to do other things, as opposed to buying material things.  It makes sense, but I like to take it a step further: instead of focusing on buying, just do things that buy yourself time, energy, and countless other things. What makes F3 great is that by engaging in it you unlock happiness in so many ways: more energy, more confidence, better health, more perspective, empathy and compassion for others.  And you start to realize that if you just go get the damn work done, you can go concentrate on other things that matter more: family, relaxation, self-care.  It’s the best time management hack there is, and we’re all on to it.  But learn from it, too!  Getting the work done right and right away allows us to focus on other things more, and it makes us happier.

(Steps off soap box, almost trips on way down.)

23 PAX started with a warm up routine to get the heart pumping, a jumping jack series of regular jacks, seals and smurfs.  Right when I introduced a kung-fu merkin (you had to be there) Beebe rolls up (it is his second post, first at Falcon) at the bottom of the hill, saving PAX from worse kung-fu merkin fate.  We decided to jump right into it at that point:

• Shuffle to the speed limit sign, 10 merkins, sprint back, 10 merkins, repeato for 10 minutes.
• Holy Trinity: Dips, Burpees, Derkins.  25, 10, 25 first set.  20, 10, 20 second set.  10, 10, 10 third set. Misery and Amphibious were right next to me nailing each burpee and counting out each set.  For those that have not combined these exercises with no rest, let me tell you, it is darn tough.
• Backwards bunny hop up hill, stopping for 5 merkins at each light, then forward bunny hop down, stopping for 5 squats at each light.  Great work by Juco on these pushing the pace.
• Speed Limit Slingshot: Backwards run to speed limit sign up hill, then sprint to speed limit sign at bottom of hill, repeato twice.  Prefontaine and Assisi represented as per usual.
• Sprint to traffic circle, then bear crawl back to top parking lot.

Mary:

25 Russian Hammers

Moleskine:

There are so many good guys out here in the gloom that I wanted to catch up with.  I just didn’t get the chance. It can be really tough after a long absence and then only having a few minutes post-workout in the gloom.  Until next time, fellas.

Get involved with other PAX.  It does not matter if you have max experience or none at all, we will teach you how to ruck, spartan, or in the case of The Snowman, play rugby.

So nice to see Beebe post again; great to have you, buddy!