Conditions: Humid, 74 degrees, Humidity 95%, Wind 8mph from ENE
Warm-up: Mosey from the flag to the start. Warm-up on your own. No time for SSH or Grass Grabbers or J-Los, we’ve got work to do.
The Thang: The H8! F3 NOLA’s overly complicated, semi-annual, feat of strength. The stick by which our fitness is measured.
Each lap consists of running south to the top of the levee, crossing canal (bear crawling the neutral ground), running south to the bottom of the levee, cross canal and run north to the top of the levee, cross canal (bear crawling the neutral ground), running north down the levee and back across canal to the starting point. At the starting point you do a descending burp and merk pyramid starting at 8 (burpee with 8 hand release merkins, burpee with 7 hand release merkins, …, burpee with 1 hand release merkin)
At the end of the 2nd lap the burp and merk pyramid starts at 7, etc.
The goal is to complete 8 laps in 40 minutes. According to MapMyRun, each loop is approximately 0.4 miles. Therefore, to conquer the H8! you will have to do the following in 40 minutes:
- Run over 3 Miles of Hills
- 550 Yards of Bear Crawls
- 36 Burpees
- 120 Merkins
NMM
- The construction at the south base of the levee caused for a slight re-route. The H8! Committee did a good job of ensuring that the change was slight and the overall distance was not affected so that this fall’s running of the H8! Is considered official.
- T-claps to all of the guys coming out for the first time. I think Heart-A-Quake, Mama’s Pride, Undertaker, Disclaimer, Bieber, Bartman, Catfish, Big Easy, Snooze were all first timers.
- I didn’t keep a record of who made it and who didn’t. I am pretty sure the success rate was just north of 50%. That’s really good, especially for having so many new guys. Our fitness continues to accelerate.
One of the core principles of F3 is that it is open to all men. But just proclaiming that you are open to all men doesn’t cut it. We have to be intentional about making sure that we are welcoming to all men and that we are not unintentionally excluding anyone. There are lots of things that can make men different from one another, but most of them have nothing to do with what F3 is about. I just mean to say that participating in an F3 workout has nothing to do with what race you are, or what your financial situation is, or what religion you are, etc. (Side note: I do think it’s important to think about those things and make sure that we are not being unintentionally exclusive because of the make-up of our Pax. My point is just that the core principles of F3 workouts could apply to anyone, anywhere). One thing that does have a lot to do with F3 is fitness level. That’s why diverse fitness levels have to be considered when planning every workout. It is important that the guys that have a high level of fitness are getting smoked and it is important the that guys on the lower end of the fitness spectrum are staying with the group and are not being left behind on their own. I would like to think that we are pretty good across F3 NOLA at making sure that each work out feels like a team event, that we all have a goal of getting better and that we are supporting each other to reach that goal, no matter what our current fitness level is.
One of the complaints that I have heard about the Iron Pax Challenge is that it is not consistent with F3 in that way; that it puts the focus on the individual and even worse, ranks the individuals. Some men that aren’t at the top feel a sense of embarrassment or shame that they aren’t comparable to the guys at the top. You could make the same argument about the H8! There’s certainly a sense of completing it and not completing it.
Personally I think competition like this is really important. If you want to run faster, you have to run with faster guys. In order to accelerate our fitness, we need to be in the back of the pack striving to get to the front. I enjoy competition and I think it plays an important role in growth. But I also think that it is important that we work hard to keep the sense of comradery and teamwork that all F3 workouts have. The H8! Is something we all want to conquer and that we want to help each man conquer.
There are a couple of quotes that have stuck with me from the book “Run the Mile You are In: Finding God in Every Step” by Ryan Hall, the American Record Holder in the half-marathon and the fastest American to ever run the Boston Marathon (2:04). He said “Competition can be a beautiful thing if we are focused on making ourselves and others better and are not concerned about how we stack up with everyone else…..this is why comparisons in athletics and in life are so fruitless. When we compare, we miss the joy of the journey as well as the joy of the achievement.”
Let’s make sure we keep pushing ourselves and each other, without compromising the joy of the journey. A common motto at an F3 work out is that it’s “You against You”, and that is very true. But it is also true that it is “Us against H8!”
