F3 New Orleans

Category: New Orleans

  • F3 Thibodaux’s Tribute to Cardinal F3 Knoxville – from Yankee Joe

    A few days ago, Goose posted the tragic story of F3 Knoxville’s Cardinal. In his first VQ, Cardinal (Taylor Phelps, 36) collapsed five burpees into the beatdown. Those were his last. He passed away a few hours later. Across the nation and abroad, an outpouring of love, support, money (approx. $108,000), and of course, tribute beatdowns started rolling in. As a journalist, Matt Crossman wrote, “Out of tragedy came a tidal wave of support. Out of grief came a groundswell of grace.”

    If you’ve ever designed a beatdown, you are familiar with the excitement, anxiety, and time that goes into planning each minute; a juggling act, balancing the needs of rigor, creativity, and the safety of the PAX. Designing your VQ is in many ways, a rite of passage. It is a liberating, empowering, and fulfilling experience. To that end, it is no surprise that Cardinal was so excited that he had shared his plans with other PAX as well as his wife, Andrea. In fact, we learned that Andrea even laminated the page he would use for the Q.

    The men of F3 Thibodaux wanted to do their part and offer up our prayers, our pain, and our exhaustion. 5 PAX showed up to the new Lion’s Den AO on crisp 44 degree morning. Following the lead of other PAX, we knelt for a moment of silence after the fifth burpee when Cardinal collapsed. We held that silence for 30 seconds; we could have held it for 30 minutes.

    Indeed, as we were suffering through the second set of 15 burpees (burpees 45 – 60), Goose gave us reminders not to take a break. He said, “Cardinal’s wife doesn’t get to take a break.” We all kicked it into a higher gear.

    To Andrea: If for some remote reason, you ever read this tribute, please know that we are praying for you and your family. We will keep your husband’s memory.

    To Cardinal Junior: We want you to know that the men of F3 Thibodaux stand by you and Evie ALWAYS as your friends and brothers. We stand by your side in the gloom. Keep fighting the good fight.

    Warm-up
    15 Side Straddles Hops, 10 Tempo Merkins, 10 Flutter Kicks Double Count, 10 Little Baby Arm Circles Forward, 10 Little Baby Arm Circles Backward, 10 Hallelujahs, 10 Knoxville Cherry Pickers, 20 sec Sampson Hold, 10 Willie Mays Hayes
    _______________

    The Thang

    5-Burpees
    5-Big Boys
    5-Heels to Heaven
    Run approx 160 meters (from Aslan to Playground and back)
    Repeat set
    (Burpee counter: 10)

    10-Burpees
    10-Little Baby Crunches
    10-Mt. Climbers Double Count
    Run approx 160 meters (from Aslan to Playground and back)
    Repeat set
    (Burpee counter: 30)

    15-Burpees
    15-Air Squats
    15-Freddy Mercury’s
    Run approx 160 meters (from Aslan to Playground and back)
    Repeat set
    (Burpee counter: 60)

    20-Burpees
    Run approx 160 meters (from Aslan to Playground and back)
    Repeat set
    (Burpee counter: 100)

    Rocky Top (version by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
    Hillbilly Walkers; burpee for every Rocky Top (18 burpees)
    (Final Burpee counter: 118)

    5MOM

    COT with fist bump and each PAX saying hospital name, age, and Cardinal.

    F3 Thibodaux’s own Cardinal prayed us out.

    Cardinal Knoxville’s M, Andrea posted in response to the deluge of support, “He [Taylor] had been happier than I had seen him in so long when he found you guys. Thank you for making his last days bright.”

    I think we can all relate to this experience and sentiment.

    Make sure to tell your people you love them today.

    SYITG,

    Yankee Joe

  • Wet & Wild with Napoleon on Crack! – from Fracsac

    Torrential rains for a brief but brutal period the night before left the track and inner field looking more like a community pool than a field. Lucky for the Pax, YHC arrived early and set a few things up.

    Flag planted, classic rock on the speaker, disclaimer given, mosey in a direction to get us in a parking lot on the back side.

    Warmup with regular stuff, no clubbin though. We got stuff to do! Threw some Tempo Merkins in for good measure.

    Left leg and right leg power ups x 20 at the benches where they do pseudo yoga. Added 15 dips in between

    Mosey to where the cones were set up. 11 burpees at start, bear crawl to cone 10 burpees, continue the backwards Route 66 down to 1 burpee.

    Mosey to gymn where we did some Sunday Mornings x 3 on Hump Day!

    Mosey back to the cones, each pax stand near a cone. 5 burpees to get the pax to listen.

    The end pax throws the frisbee 2 pax down, receiving pax unable to move. If HIM catches it, continue down the line. If frisbee is dropped, 4 burpees for the group. 9 sets of burpees or 36 more. Add the 5 and 66 previously and we did 107 total.

    Mosey to the flag for CoT

    NMM

    It was great to see Napoleon from Birmingham back, and he brought Sergeant Crack with him!

    66 burpees , plus the 5 and then 9 sets of 4 burpees for frisbee drops, or 36 more, gave a total of 107! Well done!

    YHC kept the pax feet semi dry.

    Thanks for posting with me!

    SYITG

  • Tuesday Two Mile – from Enron

    YHC arrived in the chilly gloom to no awaiting vehicles. Per the prior evenings chatter on the GroupMe, there was no good indication of how many PAX to expect. Thankfully, about 5 minutes before 5:30 a familiar rumble of Goose’s truck’s mud tires came humming down the neighborhood streets. The TuesdayTuff®©™ beatdown began with only Goose and YHC participating. Shortly after there was some back-and-forth chatter about who was expected to be there, when all the sudden that familiar older gentleman in a minivan made his appearance just as the warmups started. Goose and YHC were delighted to add Yankee Joe to the mix of what was planned to be a run-heavy morning.
    Warmup:
    SSH, AC, Cherry Pickers (slow according to Goose), Windmills, Self-Love, IW, Mountain Climbers
    Thang 1: Merkin Mile (25 Merkins every .25 miles while running around rich man’s loop)
    Thang 2: Core Mile (100 LBCs at .25, 75 Freddie Mercury’s at .50, 50 Leg Raises at .75, and 25 BBSU at mile 2)
    Thang 3: ATMs (3 rounds total with 30 squats in between each round)
    15 Alternating shoulder taps (2 is 1)
    10 Tempo Merkins
    10 Merkins

    Finished with 1 quick mosey lap around the stage field before a few minutes of Mary

    Mary:
    YHC decided to add a little friendly competition to the end of the workout today. The winner would get to select what we did next in our Mary session.
    Competition: Who can hold 6 inches the longest.
    After over 2 minutes, Goose was the only survivor left holding his legs in the air. He informed us that to be able to hold for that long you must focus on something entirely different than what you were doing. This did not seem possible to YHC due to the pain and figured this was just another one of Goose’s mind games, no pun intended.
    Finished out with some pickle pounders and J-Lo’s.
    COT and Goose prayed us out. Enjoyed the longer run and the chatter of male vs. female movies, plots, and dialogues along the way.
    SYITG,
    Enron

  • Mario Kart 4 Lyfe – from Paradox

    The year is 1999..
    In your best friends basement you pull the marioKart64 cartridge , give it two puffs inward and reinsert . Rainbow road flashes on the screen and your pulse quickens. Just the perfect amount of sweat on your palms to reduce the D-pad Friction on your thumb. Two hot pockets in the microwave upstairs and you got a Surge in the fridge for just such an occasion.
    Life is good…

    The year is 2008.
    Despite a college physics final in 8 hours that could derail your future career you are locked in a heated Nintendo Wii Mario Kart tournament. A pack of keystone lights awaits the victor.
    Life is good …

    The year is 2023. Your stand in a circle of High Impact Men on a crisp bayou morning and you have the privilege to lead. A pristine life size Mario Kart track awaits 4 Pax.

    Seasons change , presidents come and go but Mario Kart …Mario Kart is forever.

    Warmup
    SSH, IW, WM, GG with the Clap
    AC, cherry picks , MC (I can feel a schism on its way that involves Cardinal removing these from the warmup )

    Bumper mosey

    Anker Tribute

    Day-O by Harry Belafonte
    Sqats – 3 levels on “day “
    Alternate between upper, middle and lower squat hold
    A deeeeep burn sets in on about the 14th day and there are many many more

    The Thang a Lang (it’s funny cus it sounds like dang a lang, ok ok I’ll show myself out )

    *****MARIO KART *****

    5 stations setup on corners of the Track
    3 banana peels and a mystery cube at each
    Flip the cone -pick one , complete exercise , advance with sprint in between.
    Gather 1 coin per Lap
    Most coins per round wins

    LIGHTNING: 7 burpees for all pax except the one ego pulled the card , they advance 2

    Rainbow road -mosey to bumper

    GREEN SHELLS
    Each pax has 1 each with various reps , in round 1 can give out to any pax as they pass.

    Round 1
    10 minutes
    Every one on their own.
    Do what you must to win.

    Goose and Cuz tied for round 1 with 2 coins each after hitting a flurry of Lightning streaks.

    Round 2
    10 minutes
    Pax as a team , try to beat collective goal from round 1 of coins
    Use green shells to help a burdened teammate this round

    We equaled our goal here with significantly more hardships in the rainbow road and thruster departments. Great effort and YHC could feel the concerted efforts to break our goal.

    Peels were as follows :
    Cone 1
    20 merkins
    25 squats
    20 monkey humpers
    ? Card: bearcrawl to 2

    Cone 2
    20 big boys
    20 leg raises
    20 crunchy frogs
    ?card : Lightning

    Cone 3
    20 coupon OHP
    ?card: Rainbow road
    20 thrusters
    20 Coupon swings

    Cone 4
    15 ranger merkins
    50 MC (2 is 1)
    10 burpees
    ?card: lightning

    Cone 5
    10 shoulder tap merkins
    10 jump squats
    ?card : bearcrawl back to 4

    Notes:
    – Back to back to back Lightning in round one equaled about 50 burpee’s sandwiched between moseys #yikes
    – The transferred vengeance of round 1 was palpable when Darth Cardinal handed me 8 body builders and immediately gave Cuz 10 more squats. He blamed Goose and as planned we saw the ugly side of competing only for one’s self: Blame, guilt, wrath , envy .Ya hate to see it.
    – On the flip side in round 2 we saw the fruits of our efforts being for others . The joy on cuzs face as 10 thrusters were taken off his shoulders. Knowing he would advance to help another . Goose even mumbled an apology for hitting another lighting in YHCs face (talk about progress! )

    Wrapped with Mary – 1 round of crunchy frogs

    COT and Cuz prayed us out

    Had a blast this am fellas.
    A physical reminder for YHC too lean fully on Gods limitless strength as we help those in need.

    SYITG
    PDox

    Epilogue

    …The year is 2062,
    Your grandkids just got off the hovercraft school bus excited to tell you they have a retro virtual reality game called “ Mario Kart”.
    They ask if you wanna play and promise to take it easy on you.
    You longingly stare out the window as the pulse quickens.

    You call down to the F3 nursing home to tell the staff you won’t be there for your evening rounds.

    You tell the nurse “Jeaux needs his doo doo pills by 5pm, and if Ronnie gets on a heater he has a separate checking account. Mix Tanas meds with an abita or he won’t take them. Make sure Goose gets to explain paradox to his family visitors or he’ll get cranky . Stop by Cardinals room and drop off the new whoop version 74.0 and tell Cuz they put “prayers “ instead of “good luck “ on the school marquee so he’ll sleep better. “

    “Tell them all I got a lesson to teach the 3.0s”

    YHC grabs the VR headset, cracks his neck and takes a sip of a chilled Surge.

    They never knew what hit em

  • Rock The Renaissance – from Fracsac

    The Renaissance started off with a speaker blasting classic rock and facing the bacon to warm up. YHC was counting cadence but the Pax were too quiet. That brought a 5 burpees penalty. Pax were louder, then dropped off again, which brought 5 more burpees! That got their attention!

    Mosey to light posts for a Vagabond reverse Route 66. Start with 11 burpees and work down to 1.

    Mosey back to the fountain for stations with a 53# kettlebell sandbag, a 60# sandbag (sweetness) and Triple Shifts wee 40# sandbag. A jump rope and a frisbee made their way in too.

    EMOM to get out last burpees to hit 100.

    A few minutes left so to the side of the museum for Sunday Mornings.

    COT

    100% attended Coffeteria.

    SYITG

  • Maverick++ and 99 Burpees – from Rudy

    Brisk Mothership morning. 12 PAX in the cool gloom came out to better themselves. YHC wanted to reward them – and what better way than with burpees.

    Mosey over to the Peristyle for a quick warm up of some stretching and SSH/IW.

    Thing 1: YHC went way back in the backblast archives looking for something new, and found what Reluctant Yankee termed “The Maverick” from July 2015. But – YHC wanted to one-up them. The Maverick was 11s. What one-ups 11s? A larger number. So in honor of the 220th anniversary of Louis XVI’s beheading – we went for 16s.

    16 Squat Jumps to start, in the Peristyle. Run to the benches, stopping for 1 Hand Release Merkin on the way. Then 1 Dip. Return for 15/2/2. 14/3/3. You get the idea. That was a gasser… Way to go, SOGO and Mahatma (the early finishers) as they pushed the rest of us through to completion. Spaulding’s form was, as always, impeccable.

    YHC was accused of running away, merely because he had to return to his car to get…. The Deck o’ Death. Mosey to the center of the newly-resurrected Great Lawn.

    Thing 2: Hearts = Burpees, Diamonds = Squats, Clubs = Sit Ups, Spades = More Hand Release Merkins (Kennah Brah started griping about that early). Meanwhile, because Macgyver refused to pay attention, he drew a 5 burpee penalty while the rest of the PAX waited. Then the cards began. Out of the gate, Squats took the early lead. But then Hearts started showing. Again. And again. Forever it seemed.

    20 mins later, 26 cards down, YHC called it – so we could get to the last thing. 12 of 26 cards were BurpeeHearts. Frac reported that we did a total of 91 burpees.

    Thing 3: A few rounds of Tyson, with Core exercises. Sprint half-way on the lawn, 10 reps. Sprint to the end, 10 reps, Sprint halfway back, 10 reps, Sprint to the end, 10 reps. Start with V-Ups. YHC instructed PAX who finished first to keep going until the 6 finished 10 reps. Several of the PAX revolted – leading to a 5 Burpee penalty (96 burpees, YHC thought to himself).

    Then we did rounds of Freddy Mercury, Wife Pleasers, and Hello Dolly. Heisenberg and Frac TRIED to get additional penalty burpees to hit 100. But YHC would not bite.

    7:29 – time to head back to the flag. BUT WAIT: 3 more burpees, just because. 99 burpees total.

    COT: Close up with a count-off and name-o-rama. Lots of stuff going on, especially running – Run Cajun Run, Krazy Ivan and City Pork. Several intentions – new life (congrats Disclaimer!) and sad passings. Prayers go with those heading to the next stage of life, and for comfort for those they have left (temporarily).

    And prayers for Spaulding’s friend suffering from Shingles. PSA: The shingles vaccine. If you haven’t (looks askance at himself), please get it. It is painful and 100% unnecessary to suffer through. That is all.

  • “Yote Time”: written by Coyote – from Goose

    Once we got there, the first thing YHC saw was the dreaded Montana Bun as it was swaying in the chill wind, with its little curl. I couldn’t take my eyes off until Paradox said, “What’s up Yote!” YHC replied, “Where’s the other doc?” and then started the warmups. We did the normal stuff such as Side-straddle-hops and Windmills and Imperial Walkers, but YHC did something special, some “Throw me something misters”, now, everybody liked that, but after a while we started an Indian run with the back person doing five bonnie blaires (2is1) and running to the front of the line all the way to the field. Then we started the fun stuff, we picked partners and YHC told a little story about a guy who was chased by a buffalo, so we set up cones and partner 1 sprinted to the first cone and got passed right when partner 2 sprinted after him as he started to bunny hop to the third cone. Red fish was YHC’s partner, so it was hard to catch him, but YHC got him down, and he had to do five burpees. Then we switched, and YHC got away with it, and Redfish had to do five buffalo kicks. Everybody did it again, and we all moseyed to the chimney and YHC told a story about a guy who purposely got bitten by an alligator snapping turtle, and we set up more cones in a zig-zag pattern, and we bear crawled to each cone. As Goose trampled the pax, we got to the cones and did shoulder taps and then karaoke ran to the cones and did burpees. Redfish and YHC were neck and neck for who would get there first, until he tripped on his own foot, and YHC got there first. After a while, we moseyed to the Thunderdome and did two rings of fire, one with LBC’s and elbow plank jacks to 75. And then we did this song that was a Gaelic song that was turned into a techno song, we did calf jumps to the beat during the refrain and squats during the verses. For four long minuets we jumped and squatted until the song ended and we flopped onto the ground, worn out to the bone. We moseyed to the tennis court and played tennis with a volleyball. While doing exercises, we hit the ball back and forth, every time a person would hit it, that person had to do a burpee, and every time a team got a point, the other team did 5 merkins. We moseyed back to the flag and did the alphabet, and after all 16 people did nameoff, counting 2 FNG’s, YHC went off to the side, and did cooldown exercises. Paradox and Enron didn’t want to leave me hanging, so they came over and did them with YHC, now we have this group called “Cooldowns with Yote”.

  • NEW AO NAMED IN THIBODAUX! / A Transportation Exhibition – from Goats in the Machine

    YHC arrived at the at 5:25 to eight (8) PAX, including and FNG, parked and waiting near the flag poles in front of the Civic Center as instructed. An Additional Pax, Goose, was spotted parking in the wrong location as well displaying a level of tardiness that is typically only seen by YHC. It was latter discovered that he was delayed due to an uncontrollable urge to craft a fudge pop. YHC began the Beatdown with 10 PAX (including myself) at 5:32.

    It was 64 degrees, dry air, and highly saturated grounds. The concrete was still moist and had puddles colleting in low spots from the previous night’s rain.

    Warm-O-Rama
    SSH, Imperial Walkers, Wind Mills, Arm stretching, High Knees, Butt Kicks, Mosey to Basketball Court
    YHC’s cadence was miserable as usual

    THANG 1 – “The Long BLACK Train”
    This THANG was designed with the intention of showcasing various means of F3 Transport. The PAX lined up at mid-court. The Pax used the following methods to transport themselves between mid-court and the bassline in succession: Bear crawls, Lunges, Alligator Merkin Crawl, Crab Walk, and Kicking walks (AKA Waling Ray Finkel). I’m a sucker for a good acronym. During each round and in between “transports” the Pax performed reps of an exercise called by YHC.

    Round 1= BBSU (10 reps per transport, 50 total for the round)
    Round 2=Squats (10 reps per transport, 50 total for the round)
    Round 3 =Shoulder Taps (10 reps per transport, 50 total for the round)
    Round 4 = Burpees (5 reps per transport, 25 total for the round)
    Round 5 = Monkey Humpers (10 reps per transport, 50 total for the round)

    Pax then did an Indian-Run back to Aslan, a concrete Lion statue, and then to the bottom of the berm at the water reservoir.

    THANG 2 – Price is Right – Kelly Bluebook Used Car Edition
    The PAX separated into two (2) teams. YHC listed a year make and model for a vehicle. The following was assumed: 20k miles, good condition, base model, standard equipment, white exterior color. The team closest to the KBB value with out going over wins the round. The loosing team sprinted up the berm performed 5 burpees and sprinted back. the winning team sprinted up the berm and back. Followed by 3 burpees at the bottom.

    For your reference:
     2015 Honda Acord LX = $13,744
     2016 Mercedes-Benz C Class 300 = $16,633
     2019 Honda Odyssey LX = $22, 751
     2019 Toyota RAV4 LE= $23,026
     2022 Ford XLT Crew Cab = $43,277

    COT

    Count Off & Name-O-Rama : 10 PAX

    Announcements :
    -Coyote Birthday Q @ the Perch on Saturday.
    -Welcome “AOL,” an IT professional
    -The Name of the Civic Center AO was declared “The Lions Den.” This named is derived from the before mentioned concrete statue , Aslan, that happened to be located near our shovel flag. “Narnia” was thrown out as an option, but Mother Goose informed us that is was too juvenile and feminine. @Goose Please look into getting the new AO added to the Backblast Database.

    Intentions: Thanksgiving for Enron’s new 2.5, Family of a deceased neighbor, Extended Family Strife

    Cardinal Prayed us out.

    It was a blast exploring the new AO with these men. YHC can’t wait participate in the creative beatdowns to come!

    Sincerely,
    GITM