F3 New Orleans

Category: Backblasts

  • The Big Man Doesn’t Disappoint – from Steve

    I had my reservations when I sent out an EH over slack and received back no biceps, no bombs exploding, no thumbs ups. (To Jose’s credit, I did receive a private GIF from him explaining his absence – see, we need a GIF / video option!).

    With heavy rain throughout the night and a few other private texts saying, essentially, negative ghost rider – things were looking bleak. But I shoulda known! You never underestimate the reliability of Mr. Shooter. With just YHC and the Big Man there, it felt like a blast from the past. Hard to believe that we’ve been working out together for nearly 8 years.

    With more rain threatening, YHC set up a quick ladder of merkins, squats, LBC’s, and freak nasties so we could get to work under the covered corridor. Now, I’ve learned many things from Shooter over the years (though mastered none of it): when to get the best prices on Blue Bell (and of course, best flavors), the many uses of deer urine, how to be a good Pee-Paw once that time comes, and generally, what it looks like to be a good man. But one lesson that Shooter has impressed upon us often would not be heeded today and that is to always, ALWAYS descend!

    Instead we ascended and descended the ladder, but honestly, it wasn’t tough. With no burpees or groiners or Bulgarians, it was just enough to get a light sweat and still be able to chatter.

    Appreciate you Shooter, and I hope I get another 8 years of hitting the pavement with you brother.

  • L is for Idiots – from Rev Sox

    YHC is back. I know the pax has missed both my creative Qs and delightful leadership style and after not Qing a workout for months, I’m back but with a slight controversy.

    YHC volunteered to Q the Goldmine at the conclusion to the Scrum but never filled out the Q sheet. Another kind Pax member wrote in YHC’s name but then in the note column wrote “L” which led to questions and intrigue from the pax. What does the L stand for? Is L for Loser because YHC has missed F3 so often over the last two years? Is L for the second L in YHC’s last name? Is L for an inventive new workout the likes of which the F3 Nations has never seen before?
    YHC did not write his name on the Q sheet and the L means nothing….. until the Pax forced it to mean something because we are all idiots.

    The Thang
    Warm-up – 20 SSH, 20 Imperial Walkers, 15 Floyd Mayweathers, 10 windmills

    Fresh Meat for the Mosquitos – the mosquitos were out in force during the Scrum on Monday, so YHC thought he would play into that reality by offering up the Pax as sacrifices to the swarm. 6 pax were present, so we broke up into 3 groups of two. One group dead man hang, one group holds plank, one group holds the up position on the dip bar. Hang until the first dead man can hang no longer and switch until all pax members have offered themselves to the mosquitos by hanging on the monkey bars.

    Route 66 – mosey down 10 light posts on the path. Travel back down the path doing 1 merkin at the first light post with ascending count until there are 10 merkins at the 10th light post. YHC is not in merkin shape.

    Elevens – the remainder of the workout was a long version of elevens which no pax finished before the end. Upon announcing that the next workout would be eleven, led by the nantan himself, the Pax announced that L must stand for Eleven. Does Eleven start with L? No. But we are all idiots, so sure L stands for Elevens. Start with 10 burpees at the top of the ramp leading to the performing arts center, run down to the bottom where cinder blocks await, do 11 curls with the blocks, run to the front of the performing arts center and do 1 box jump on the stone benches, run back to the cinder blocks for 11 squats with the blocks and then run back up the ramp to start round two with 9 burpees then 11 curls then 2 box jumps, and 11 squats and so forth. Continue the exercise until 6:11 when the Pax needs to return to the flag.

    The End
    1 set of 20 flutter kicks to get the pax to 6:15. Count off, Name-O-Rama, Announcements, Intentions, Prayer with Sweaty Ball O Man

    Thank you for welcoming back your favorite Q, See you again in the gloom,
    Rev Sox

  • Hazy Shade of Spring – from Akbar

    6 in the Gipper Gloom today, arriving to warmer temps and fog.

    Warm Up: SSH, ARM CIRCLES, SELF LOVE, GRASS GRABBERS, SWIMMERS, TOE TOUCHES, WINDMILLS

    Pax: Akbar, Moby Dick, BBQ, Dark Wing Duck, Einstein, Barely Legal

    Head to the Rock Garden for 2 sets of 10 OYO. Shoulder Press, Curls, Triceps Raise, Rows, Goblet Squats

    Mosey to the Courthouse for 11’s: Scuba Steve on street side, run down past the Smoke House, up the stairs for Stone Mountains on the other side.

    Benches: 2 rounds: x10 IC 1st in regular cadence, 2nd in Tempo cadence.

    Dirkin, Freak Nasty, Romanian Split Squats, Superman’s

    Head back to the Flag for a Jose10k Wife Pleaser trifecta of regular and single leg variations, Jane Fonda’s, and time was called by Legal.

    No announcements, YHC closed out with prayers for Moby Dicks friend Ron, and opportunities to serve and lead those around us.

  • “Hey, Goose, You Big Stud!” – from Yankee Joe

    Over the past few weeks, the PAX has been playing regular season games while its Coach is sidelined for negligence around a sign-stealing scandal.

    Wait…that doesn’t sound right. Rufus, where the hell did you get this information from? Seriously? You let that baked bean loving cousin of yours tell you what to write? How many times do I have to tell you…Duke, is not a part of our Blast productions. And while we’re on the topic, you can tell that mutt and his lackey to roll their amateur footage all the way back to St. Johns.

    I’m sorry. It’s not you. I’ve been under a lot of pressure. In the past month, my profession, my coffee, and my smirk have all been called into question. I’m not sure who I am anymore, and the scorn is flowing like Goldilox (where has that guy been, by the way?).

    Ok, so over the past few weeks, the PAX has been posting without its tactle…I mean fearless leader in attendance. It has been a season of growth for the PAX, both in numbers and in identity. With Ponzi and Tidy Whity back in the mix, along with White Meat coming in hawt and staying hawt, the energy of beatdowns is palpable, not to mention the chatter quality has really found a new level.

    But no matter how many FNG’s show up, or how creative the beatdowns get, or to what extent Pope smokes the rest of us in…well everything, nothing but nothing can replace Montana. I guess he wasn’t really ‘carrying the boats’ after all.

    RUFUS! DUDE, C’mon! Please try to treat this more seriously than Popeye doing bonnie blair’s.

    Alright…Nothing but nothing can replace the energy and poise brought by Goose. And yet, while his absence creates a gaping abyss for Paradox to talk about pre-order lady cut t- shirts (“Bruhh, so the sport-tek is def superior to the tri-blend, no question.”), we can easily forget about Goose’s path to recovery. His faith unrelenting, Goose reminds us that God has a plan. Of course, that doesn’t make some of the turns any less dark.

    As such, YHC thought it might be a honkin’ good time to share in Goose’s recovery plan. So, YHC pulled up to a Tuesday Tuff expecting (hoping for) a deluge. A torrential downpour would have turned a regular session of pain into a morning full of dirty, sloppy suffering…a type of glory known only by the protectors of Helm’s Deep and Andy Dufresne. Alas, the bad weather would hold off, which is just as well. BAPS does not like to get his little knobs wet…it makes him feel all shorted out.

    By 5:15, a PAX of 8 began – that is once we waited for Paradox to finish an anecdote about something…probably another story about the trials of playing middle school football in Homer. We ran the normal warmarama. Cadence all over the place and YHC often forgot to count because he was too busy running his mouth…probably telling another story about the trials of going to middle school in the 1940’s.
    ————————————-

    The Thang

    If you’ve posted with Goose enough, you know he has a lukewarm relationship with Dora 1-2-3. Even so, YHC can’t think of a thang that is more Goose-like than:

    a) doing hard ascending exercises in increments of 100,
    b) alternating with some awful form of transport (typically leg heavy), and
    c) experiencing all of the suffering with the support of a partner.

    For this morning, we would take on a Dora 1-2-3 pyramid. The ascension/descension (reps of 100, 200, 300, 200, 100) represented Goose’s path to healing. Like any physical recovery, going up and down, the rehab is sometimes seemingly impossible, sometimes surprisingly productive.

    For each transport, we emulated Goose’s progress beginning with zombie crawls and working our way up through spiderman crawls, bear crawls, flying nuns, and finally, full-out sprints around the track. By the end, the PAX would slowly and painfully work through the pyramid to achieve Goose’s full recovery, 100 Goosie’s with full sprint as transport.
    ——————————————

    It went a little something like this…

    100 burpees – switched out for jump squats in what might be the most brilliant audible in YHC’s F3 tenure (that’s right, I said tenure)

    P1 – Zombie crawl to marker, mosey back
    P2 – Jump squats
    Flapjack

    Observations:

    YHC has called on the Zombie Crawl on several occasions as a Q. For whatever reason, it ALWAYS creates havoc, leading to debate among the mutineers about what the proper form looked like. For the purposes of posterity, let’s get this settled…let those who have ears hear, those who have bad form repent.

    The Zombie Crawl is NOT an Army Crawl. The latter requires leg movement, while the former requires your entire lower body to be dragged. As posited this morning, the Zombie Crawl can include full extension of the arms. However, doing so would basically be a mobile version of Paradox’s hip dip cobra thrust he tries to pass off as a merkin. Rather, YHC believes the Zombie Crawl should be a chilcutt (elbow) plank position, while pulling a lifeless lower body…you know…basically America’s Best’s whole experience in having YHC as a partner.

    ———————————————

    200 J-Lo’s 1:1

    P1 – spiderman crawl to marker, mosey back
    P2 – J-Lo’s
    Flapjack

    Observations:

    These are so much harder than I remembered from the Lil’ Cuz Peltch beatdown around the track. Not surprisingly, Lil’ Cuz is really good at these. At this point, any real chatter began to die off. The soundtrack at this point, the “Affirmative Goose” playlist was leaning into “Glory of Love” and “Hell’s Bells.” The morning seemed to be getting darker.

    ————————————————

    300 merkins

    P1 – bear crawl to marker, mosey back
    P2 – J-Lo’s
    Flapjack

    Observations:

    America’s Best inadvertently found himself partnered with YHC for the beatdown. Having apparently drawn the short straw, he was magnanimous in his patience with YHC’s woeful merkin count each round. I don’t know how he did it. I mean, he’s a specimen sure, but my man was turning out reps like Tana in Slidell on a Tuesday with McCallister’s in tow.

    Appropriately, the Rocky IV training montage was playing at this point. Pope thought it was theme music from a Wii game (Goose you need to address that). The morning was irrelevant. By now, time was just a construct. 10 minutes left or 20 minutes, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except for the next rep.
    ——————————————–

    200 leg raises

    P1 – flying nuns to marker, mosey back
    P2 – merkins
    Flapjack

    Observations:

    By this time, it was clear that the YHC/AB team had fallen behind. This was not really surprising in regards to the HoneyValve.com duo, but suspicions about questionable form were beginning to creep into YHC’s mind, only confirmed by AB whispering slanderous accusations.

    Now, from time to time, YHC has been known to throw an accusation or two around concerning bad form. NOT today, however. If the form police had been on site, YHC would have been brought up on felony charges, doomed to a life of peddling cigarettes and contraband posters of Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, and Raquel Welch. We got a nice little upbeat interlude with Jurrassic 5’s “What’s Golden,” but nobody cared. There was nothing to care about. Life had lost its meaning. Salt had lost its taste. Enron had lost his sarcasm.
    —————————————

    100 Goosies

    P1 – sprint around track
    P2 – Goosies
    Flapjack

    Observations:

    YHC had no observations. Each sprint around the track was…well not a sprint. YHC was beyond regretting most of his life choices. Jefferson Airplane serenaded us to an anthem of urban development (can’t help but think this would be a great trivia question), followed by ‘Come Sail Away’ by Styx. The Stage had faded to black.

    Having repped, crawled, and ran our way through Goose’s recovery, we finished with the only thing YHC felt would be appropriate for a man that has designed multiple versions of Burpeepalooza. We did full out Burpees AMRAP for the last minute.

    COT, Paradox talked about pre-order t-shirts for 23 minutes, and Safety Valve prayed us out.

    It’s obvious that the PAX is not complete without you, Goose. That said, every beatdown, every individual posting, every ridiculous bout of mumblechatter, and every obnoxious accounting of proper form is a testament to your legacy and the incredible gift you offered us by bringing F3 to Thibodaux.

    Opportunities to lead are precious. I don’t take them for granted.

    SYITG,

    Yankee Jeaux

    Epilogue:

    As we neared the end, I realized, to my amazement, that other teams had not only finished, BUT were starting the regimen all over again. So inspiring was this achievement that I was snapped out of the darkness. Upon finishing my last lap – being the very last one to finish – a sense of gratitude welled up inside of me. In that nanosecond, I got a glimpse of what real servant leadership looks like. Mannn…this F3 stuff…am I right?

  • The Farmer [walk] in the Dell’ – from Hogs Breath

    A beatdown based on farmers walks, so naturally, farmers in the Dell!

    YHC arrived at the 007 to find Bumper already walking laps!

    It ended up the two of us.
    Warm up, some stretching and some IC exercises.

    The Thang
    One pax would farmers walk while the other would do an excercise (burpees, merkins, squats, LBC, seal-jacks, raise the roof, and irkens). Once the farmer-walking pax set down the coupons, pax one would take off in a sprint and meet up. The pax would then switch places. We were able to get three laps around the circle.
    With about 10 mins left, both pax went on an extended farmers walk with the coupons.

    Ended with COT

  • 3 Stations – from Pool Boy

    5:30 Disclaimer given and we head to the parking lot between the Pavilion and the Senior Center.

    Warmups consisting of:
    SSH
    Abe Vigoda’s
    Cement Grabbers
    Arm Circles
    Toy Soldiers
    Imperial Walkers
    Mountain Climbers

    Thang
    With the help of my 12 year son the night before, rocks already at our location.

    Partner up
    3 stations – Rotate after 10 mins.
    Station 1
    Rifle carry from Pavilion to speed bump while partner does squats
    Station 2
    Lunge walk to senior center;partner curls
    Station 3
    Jump rope; partner runs to entrance stop sign

    Mary back at the flag.
    COT

  • Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant. – from Akbar

    4 Pax in the gloom this morning, welcoming back Julio and Moby Dick. The title has nothing to do with the beatdown, beyond sharing knowledge. Still a lot of work on the playground, but the basketball goals are up in preparation for Marsh Madness.

    PAX: Akbar, The Hammer, Julio, Moby Dick, Waterpik.

    Started with the usual warm up consisting of SSH, Grass Grabbers, Arm Circles, Self-Love, Imperial Walkers, and Windmills.

    Head to the playground for 4 sets of pull ups and squats.

    4 corners around the big block stopping at each intersection for Hand Release Merkins, Sumo Squats, and Superman’s x10 IC. Ditching the HR Merkins for 2 corners with regular Merkins.

    Head to the benches for Freak Nasty, Bulgarian Split Squats, and Irkins x10 IC

    4 corners on the court: Stone Mountain, Shoulder Taps, Overhead Claps, and standing shoulder fly’s x 10 IC. Threw in a couple of backwards lunge walks, and headed back to the benches for another round of Freak Nasty, Bulgarians, and Irkins.

    Center court for Mary, consisting of Hello Dolly, Rosalita, Wife Pleasers, and Little Many Crunches.

    Count, Name, and Hammer prayed us out.

    No Announcements

    Thanks for the post!

    SYITG,

    Akbar

  • Plain and Simple – from Superfun(d)

    Pax: Yankee Jeaux, Paradox, Cardinal, Pope, Wet Tap, Popeye, America’s Best, White Meat, Lil Cuz

    Since I’m not as creative and poetic as Yankee Jeaux or Paradox, I will keep this back blast simple, just like the beatdown. But, YHC knew it was going to be a good beatdown when the douche wagon pulled up.

    Warmups
    – SSH
    – Arm Circles
    – Cherry Pickers
    – Imperial Walkers
    – Grass Grabbers with the Clap
    – Mountain Climbers

    Thang 1: Merica’s favorite exercise, Merkins!

    Each Pax had their own deck of cards. Each card you pulled represented how many merkins you did. K, Q, J, and 10s were 10 merkins each. 9 = 9 merkins and so forth. Since I’m a gracious Q, Aces were worth only 1 instead of 11. YHC called time since I didn’t hear anymore mumble chatter and the pecs were on fire. If you were able to finish the deck, it would be 340 merkins. Moseyed to stop sign and back.

    Thang 2: Groucho Mile

    Everybody partnered up. Partner 1 performed Grouchos (squat then turn 180 then repeat) while partner 2 did 5 War World 1 sits up. Once partner 2 was finished, he would mosey up to Partner 1 and swap. We had only completed ~.5 of a mile when time was called. We moseyed back to the stage where we did 1 MOM – flutter kicks and LBCs.

    COT and Dox prayed us out. Thank y’all for coming out to support my yearly Q. The fitness, fellowship, and faith is powerful in our group, and I greatly appreciate the F3 PAX.

    See y’all in 2025,
    SuperFun(d)

  • Rolling Dice with Dora!!! – from Shooter

    YHC is not sure what kept so many home today.. Was it the glove recommendation, not sure. Maybe the fact that I have not led a Saturday in some minds EVER, flattering. Or did most just have better things to do than roll Dice with Dora.. Whatever it may have been, 8 still decided to take the red 💊.. Hopefully YHC delivered what was expected but if not just maybe some of you will feel it tomorrow or the next…

    Warmup was brief
    10IC
    Imperial walkers, Hillbillies, Grass grabbers, Good mornings, Cherry Pickers and Mummy kicks..

    Thang
    Split into two groups
    Trigger was the block work

    100 (Squat thrusters/Kettle swings)
    P1 25 reps while P2 rolled the dice..
    For those not familiar Bushwacker made some blocks with stated exercises (Merkins, SSH Burpees, Putins, Jump squats etc.) numbers varied from 5 to 50..
    F/J and at the end Indian run Marigny and back.

    200 (Curls/Tri extension)
    P1 50 reps while P2 rolled the dice..
    F/J and Indian run

    300 (Chest press/Overhead press (time expired)
    P1 75 reps P2 rolled the dice..

    Thankfully the PAX only shared the count in one roll of 50 Burpees..

    Appreciate the post and until the next Gloom 👍🏼👊🏼✌🏼!!!

  • Leap of Faith – from Paradox

    Legend has it that Leap Day William lives in the Marianas Trench and only leaves that comfort every 4 years to swap candy for the tears of children….

    *Duke busts into the writing room*

    “No Dox , No! That’s 30 Rocks story …
    Tell your own! “

    Ahem..

    10 pax lept to the Lions Den on a windy spring morning eager to potentially meet a mythical leaping fellow. Surely he would be there ?! The GroupMe hype was crystal clear!
    Instead they found the great value branded Leap Day Williard. He only puts on sleeves if someone croaks and he crawls out from under a north La overpass every 4 years to bum a nicotine patch and exchange sweat equity for the tears of grown men. He has 45 minutes to maximize calorie burn and he definitely ain’t got time for your chatter or to pronounce simple nouns correctly.
    Those tv execs can go kick 30 Rocks , this is a real man’s Leap Day celebration!

    Even when presented with the dollar store version of a leap day hero these men stayed true to their HCs and settled in to, as one pax put it Best, Carpe that extra diem bawwwz!

    Duke! Roll that beautiful beatdown footage!

    Warmup
    YHC wrapped up some finishing touches of the pre-formation lap just in time to find that gaggle of leaplings calf stretching around Aslan. Took them through the usual fare with 29 SSH just to make sure Jeauxs HRV was still activated.
    Truncated warmups a bit to make room for a little musical leap day overture.

    Warmup Thang

    “Might As Well Jump”

    -Leap Day Trivia
    Started Van Halens “Jump” with Al Gore and Bobby Hurleys on Jump. The pax would need to guess the year the following albums were released and each correct guess would buy them 30 seconds off. White Meat (in his 3rd post in a week! T-claps ) dubbed these “discounts” and the pax would need all 4 (1 for each of the last 4 years) to reduce the song to 2 minutes of quad torture.

    Enron smelled the clue early that the answer would take place in a Leap Year. AB followed with his continued uncanny ability to dissect a competitive event into its vital organs, he haggled YHC down to 2 guesses per song.

    Songs :

    NWA released Straight Outta Compton and YHC was released Straight out of Homer in this year.? The pax waffled a bit but steered the ship back to 1988.

    Eagles – Hotel California (76)
    Jeaux got this album for his 10th birthday so this was a soft toss.

    Johnny Cash – Folsom Proson Blues (1968)
    Some rings of fire still burning from Jersey Mikes. Ya hate to see it.

    And the Finale, the song we had listened to the wholeeee time!
    Van Halen (1984)

    Da Main Thang

    Leap Cajun Leap

    2 yHC objectives here :

    1. Attempt 4 laps with 4 stations of a race with increasing burpees at the end of each , symbolizing the extra hours we tack on each year and then delete with leap day.
    2. Recall all the amazing beatdowns we had this month with creative ways of distracting us from the monotony of running.

    Formation Lap (The Circuit)

    YHC led the group in an intro of the course , this was from Safety Valves F1 beatdown. The formation lap, while revving the heart to pump your dreams, also gives you essential time for strategery. Some pax used this wisely and sized up potential partners while other choices could only be described as poi form.

    Da Stations (below) were roughly strewn around the civic center into Aldi and back to the Lion.

    Station 1 (3 cones in parking lot in a triangle )
    -From the Wet Tap Pyramid Scheme and Cardinal Ladder

    Partner Lunge Walk to cones
    Increasing partner squats then decrease
    3-5-3

    Mosey

    Station 2
    Alphabet Marathon (Enron)
    20 American Hammers
    Leap Frog to Cone
    20 Zombie Crunch

    Mosey

    Station 3 Bountiful Grace …if we can trust. (Goose beatdown)

    10 Goosies each
    Partner drag across to cone, swap
    10 Goosies each

    Mosey

    Station 4 The Poi-Son OhrWurm (YJ/AB)
    10 “Never Say Never”
    Shoulder Tap Merkins
    CrawlBear Through Volcanoes
    (To help AB conquer his lava phobia)
    If you knock one over, 5 star jumps
    10 Shoulder Tap Merkins at the end

    YHC could see the pax awaiting a layer of instructional complexity (AB has them trained) and a bag of recently purchased bandanas were presented to answer.
    As they were informed that one partner would be blindfolded and led through the lava by the sight able pax. They would then mosey to the lion in a half blindfolded trust run.

    Burpees after each round representing the excess hours that Leap Day takes care of each year.
    6-12-18-24

    Teams were carefully or chaotically selected and we had 29 minutes to see who could compete the most laps. I’ll break it down from YHCs view of each team.

    SafetySuckle (or HoneyValve, if you need a PG rating)

    One of the greatest pairings in F3 Thibodaux history these two politely crushed the pax and gave out attitude adjustments all while having a telepathic conversation about whether you should cut your lawn in concentric circles or parallel lines. They got separation early in the first volcano run and never looked back .

    JeauxDox (country rockstar vibes)

    Like the second team in the F1 pairing our job was mostly to keep steady pressure on safetysuckle and to show RonnieMeat what real form and real men look like. Things were fairly tame until we broke out the blindfolds….
    They say the loss of one sense heightens the remaining senses and as YHC tightened the knot the lights went dim but everything else intensified. The concrete beneath my feet , the grunting pax nearby in my ear, and then …what’s that …my spider senses were tingling …a smell in the air , we had surpassed verbal communication and now Jeaux was sending a flatulent telegraph to inform me he had ketchup and onions for dinner and couldn’t run that fast. A gastrointestinal bond was formed forever.

    I guess Seger was right this whole time.
    We were wild and young and free …against the wind.

    RonnieMeat

    Draped in a signature Walmart Stars and Stripes they kept a great pace. Representing finance and upper echelon poultry this was truly Americas team. They spent most of their time filing form complaints on JeauxDox that will never be processed.

    AB-Pop
    Recently YHC discovered there are mutiple genres of Asian pop (K-Pop, Mando-pop, C-Pop) and it seems the trend worked its way back west.
    In perfect synchrony this duo traversed a significant “muscle density “ differential that spawned an Eric Cartman meme and ultimately led to AB leaving the band for a solo career. Popeye could not be reached but his publicist sent a smirk emoji reply. Talks of a reunion tour are unlikely.

    The Trio
    Ponz-Cardinal-Dilly
    Multilevel marketing at its best they continued to let the pax know they would have gone further with just one more teammate. If I had just one pic of that 3 man squat it’s the only promo material we would ever need!

    At 5:59 SuckleValve had reached 2 and 3/4 lap and was declared victorious.
    We capped it off with a blindfolded race back to the flag and no ER trips.

    Counting , naming and announcements

    RCR closing day
    Thanks to everyone for all forms of locomotion and logging miles.
    Over 12k was raised for Youth Run Nola and 6k for Wibo Foundation.
    Local pax Stats breakdown and award ceremony pending…

    COT and Cardinal prayed us out

    A privilege to lead men.

    Epilogue

    Early in the beatdown planning committee as I was riffing on the different uses of Leap I came upon “Leap of Faith”. First I realized blindfolds were a must and second that the theme of trust and total surrender have been recurring a lot for YHC this lent.
    I had hopes the blindfold would be a physical challenge and maybe even slow down some of our thoroughbreds (it didn’t) but I underestimated the real fear that set in when trying to run in total darkness. Would I fall? Where was the curb? Do I look stupid? Surely we should be there by now? Am I being passed up? I fought the urge to reach up and claw it from my face and regain control. But Jeaux was there , calmly , confidently informing me that he could see everything ahead of me. After the panic stricken first lap I was ready for round 2, and as I began to feel the fear creep back in he said “grass is coming up dox, feel it on your feet”.
    That phrase has stuck with me since.

    It gave me hope and the visual of a place that was familiar.
    It has also been a reminder to me that we aren’t home yet. That most days I may be suffering, reaching , even clawing for the control I’m used to.
    But if I can accept the grace to fully surrender and know God can see the whole race then not only can I serve him but I can serve at full speed with any gift he has given. It doesn’t remove the obstacles nor alleviate the suffering but He’s there guiding , holding us, and providing the resources to serve.

    And one day, when our race has been run, when our struggle has ended and the battle is fought. That we may hear:

    “Home is coming up, you can feel it on your feet”.

    SYITG,
    Paradox