F3 New Orleans

Tag: The Peltch

  • Belch at the Peltch – from Goose

    12 men (big and little) gathered courageously at The Peltch for the final, brutal IPC of 2024. For one in particular, it took a lot of courage: the soon-to-be-named L-loyd, Safety Valve’s FNG 2.0, Peyton saw a circle of large, surly men grunting through the dark morning’s tightness, one of whom was wearing what looked to be a woman’s tank top, and he was reluctant to jump in. So was YHC, but not Duke–he was the opposite of reluctant this morning, and he ran to make friends with the other similar sized human form in the gloom, and they warmed up in mini 2.0 fashion about 20 yards away.

    Eventually, unable to push off the inevitable any longer, we gathered the gear and headed to the track. The IPC went like this:
    8 rounds, 5 minutes apiece: 200 m run, 30 reps of a given exercise, 200m run, and then burpees till the end of the 5 minutes. Count your total burpee reps over the 8 rounds for your “score”. The exercises were as follows:

    Round 1: Freddy Mercurys
    2: Pickle Pounders
    3: Flutter Kicks
    4. Plank Jacks
    5. Monkey Humpers
    6. Squats
    7. LBC’s
    8. SSH

    Spirits were still high for Round 1 as the PAX mumblechattered their way around the track, the mini 2.0’s sprinted ahead, and all completed more burpees in 2.5 minutes than they expected to. Round 2 on went about as expected: mumblechatter was greatly reduced, the carefully curated playlist became just background noise, Honeysuckle stayed about 40-50 yards ahead of the pack, the mini 2.0’s played imaginary football (or something) on the field, and everything but counts sank into the brain fog.

    Despite the threat of takeover from the survival instinct, YHC still had the wherewithal to notice the awesome effort of every man out there, including the medium 2.0s. Nobody walked, and the majority stayed ahead of YHC on the track pushing hard the entire time, keeping the bar high, and not saving anything for the ride home.

    Admittedly, YHC was having a hard time performing at any kind of heroic level. The runs were the much needed breaks, and catching up to the front runners felt impossible. And, with only one glove, YHC quickly followed Valve’s lead in taking advantage of the (little bit) softer turf to avoid the cheese grater that the track was on the hands during burpees. His performance (and later Dox’s) right next to me was impressive, as was Honeysuckle’s and everyone who started doing burpees ahead of YHC (which was everyone but Smooth, who remains impressive in his ability to joyfully accept and own the things that are killing him, which usually include lots of running and burpees. Here’s to the clydesdales.).

    After round 8, YHC flopped to the ground drinking in the free oxygen before Dox hauled me back to vertical position from which I could see a yard sale of heaving bodies splayed on the track. But, we still had 7 minutes left, so after a 10-count, YHC turned off the Amy Grant, and we headed back to the flag for some Mary. More exercise certainly wasn’t easy, but anything was better than burpees.

    At 7:30, we counted off, and during name off shared the number of burpees achieved. YHC though it would be good to allow the monumental feat each man had accomplished to be known and appreciated by others. Each man had something to be proud of, especially Honeysuckle who cranked out 208, earning him the coveted Blue Tube.

    In an interesting, cosmic amalgamation of many small circumstances and decisions, Valve and YHC somehow finished at the exact same number. And we didn’t start or stop or take breaks at the same time or anything. What does it mean? What implications does it have? What does it reveal about the space-time fabric of the F3 Universe?

    These questions would have to wait as we had an FNG to name. Peyton is into Legos, particularly Ninjago, so it was an easy decision. L-loyd (pronounced “luh-loyd”) was quickly christened, and we’re sure to see his small, fast form sprinting ahead of many a Peltch Indian Run line.

    There’s nothing quite like suffering through really tough stuff together with a group of good men, which is why YHC looks forward to September every year. But, thank God it’s over. We did it, and now we can rest on our laurels. Until Monday.

    SYITG,
    Goose

  • IPC Stragglers – from Goose

    A few of us had waited till the regular Saturday, Peltch-fest IPC time to crank out the hoagies and grinders, I mean burpees and thrusters. Or, maybe we were grateful for the chance to put it off till the last minute.
    As the expected PAX waded in through the waste deep water, and the rain continued for the fourth straight day, YHC was looking for a place where we could do thrusters in the grass but burpees on the pavement. (Mud burpees are fun, but not if you’re trying to do over 200 for time.) That’s when the last person any of expected to show up showed up. That’s right, Yankee Joe, Mr. Backiotomy himself, pulled up with the Prius’s waterproof battery installed.
    He immediately revealed The Fire Within, and that, combined with YHC’s being clad in Phil the Hurt, Enron’s left-out feelings began to stir. But, hey, there are only three named tank tops to go around, so, you’ll have to wait your turn.
    After a lengthy warmup for maximum back and shoulder loosening, we moseyed to the edge of the playground where the coupon herd awaited us. After some debate about the best combo of mud and pavement, Smooth pointed out that the wooden pylons around the playground made for perfectly spaced stalls for each PAX.
    YHC explained the routine at YJ’s request, revealing that had YJ known what a back-blaster this workout would be, he may not have been so cavalier in jumping back into the fray. But here we were, so suggested modifications were given, the music was cued up, and the tyrannical EMOM timer was unleashed.
    Round 1 was done by all with plenty of confidence, each of us surprised and hopeful at the amount of thrusters we could fit into the 40-ish seconds left after five quick burpees. And that was it—that’s how long the confidence and hope lasted. Round 2 revealed the truth—we were in for a long, awful grind made possible only by the fact that the man next to you wasn’t gonna stop. And the men Wednesday didn’t stop. So, don’t think about how many are left, don’t think about whether you can do it, and definitely don’t take breaks—the loop monster was hot on our heels.
    Enron and Valve were driving each other at a breakneck pace, and Pope was popping burpees like they were side straddle hops. YHC, on the other hand, takes a little longer to throw this long, heavy body around, and after seeing Honeysuckle’s performance on Wednesday and hearing that his thruster form was impeccable throughout, my thrusters would have to be real thrusters. Elbows to knees every time. No man should be left alone in his suffering, and doing that many proper thrusters in under 25 minutes is suffering, no matter how low your resting heart rate is.
    Pope, Enron, and Valve took off on the 400 meter run, but YHC still had a ways to go. YJ and Smooth were courageously sticking with it. Smooth even commented that he was already farther along than he got on Wednesday. What a hoss.
    The numbers kept creeping along, with every thrusters and burpee bought at a high price. They each felt valuable, but there were still so, so many required before the rewards of rest and pride could be attained.
    YHC hoped irrationally that the second half would at least start off a little easier given the recovery mosey and the change up of exercises, but the EMOM thrusters, though doable, did not pair well with the effort to max out burpees. YHC thought maybe shrinking the expectations of how many burpees were actually doable in the time given would bring some relief, but it only meant more thrusters. It was a cruel trap with only one long, agonizing way out.
    Eventually, as with most things in life, the few burpees every minute did actually add up to 100, and it was time to rejoin the land of the living , where people generally have hope and a sense of humor.
    After a needed recovery mosey (once YHC could rise from the ground) it was time for the PAX to take the load off Annie/YJ, so we all took the necessary amount of burpees to get him to 100, and then turned our attention to Smooth. He peacefully let us know that he’d been in a thruster loop for quite a while and felt no pressure to get out of it. It was like watching your friend get slowly eaten by a monster, but he’s like, “It’s ok, brother. These things happen. This isn’t my first, and it won’t be my last.”
    With two minutes left, we did some Hello Dollies and LBC’s in puddles to get us to 7:30, and then it was back to the flag for shirt swapping and COT.
    The Fire Within went to Valve for some cool reason (does anyone even listen to those anymore? Or have the reasons become too arbitrary? Valve noticed this, and brought it to YHC’s attention. It could be anything from a manly performance to a well placed fart. Each named shirt may need some clearly assigned criteria for what earns it. That could get fun.) Smooth earned the new Phil the Hurt by willingly doing IPC twice. Not sure how it’s gonna fit, though.
    YJ prayed us out, and we’re grateful for the 24 hours of not having to think about/
    dread the next one. Yet, somehow, there’s nothing quite like September. Grateful to suffer with you fellas.

    SYITG,
    Goose

  • At least the tree was happy – from Honeysuckle

    Today’s story begins before the beginning of the story. YHC robbed AB’s barn of coupons and deposited them near the scout hut prior to the beatdown. YHC took a roundabout way to get to the usual meeting place to make it appear that YHC was traveling directly from home and no prepping had occurred. Four PAX were waiting for YHC as well as the rain to arrive. Only one would make an appearance, unless crying is a type of rain.

    Warmarama

    Most notably, no SSH. Both fast and slow high knees were done, as well as fast and slow high knees. This was in addition to most of the regular exercises though some were forgotten. And counting appeared to be hard for the PAX today.

    Thang 1

    There is a 1/3 mile loop in the grass in Peltier Park, and the PAX did three of these to get started. Then the PAX did about another ¼ mile to get to the place where the coupons were, while discussing and admiring the row of trees. Pope was the first to spot the coupons placed near the base of the last tree.

    Finally remembering why no SSH’s occurred, YHC called an Equalizer starting with 10 count. Then, a pickup truck turned into the parking lot and for a moment we thought it was Valve appearing, right on cue. Upon closer inspection, it was not a Platinum, however. Perhaps white gold, or palladium, or sterling silver.

    Thang 2

    All we needed for a theme was a geometric shape and a bodily effect. Circle of death was already taken this week, so today would be line segments of high heart rate. Numbers weren’t our strong suit today, so the rules were simplified.

    Transport method was a running suicide format with the turnaround points at successive trees. And there are a lot of trees. To keep track of trees, Duke graciously moved a cone to whatever the current tree was. In true gosling form, he was spotted doing LBCs and other exercises while waiting for us to run out to the trees, and even had to remove his shirt at some point.

    The coupons stayed at tree 1. PAX did either 8 thrusters, 8 goblet squats, or 15 curls each time tree 1 was visited (i.e., thrusters to start, then run back and forth, do goblet squats, and so on). At the turnaround tree, 5 air squats were done before heading back every time.
    The first few trees were only a few feet from tree 1. But it didn’t take long until the distances became significant. Was running the break? Was the coupon exercise the break? Ultimately the answer was, where we’re going, we don’t need breaks.

    YHC believes that 18 rounds were done, so each coupon exercise was done for 6 sets, plus 90 air squats.

    The paths that each PAX took were clear from the dew in the grass, but AB’s discipline proved superior as his path was a very tight line.

    To add insult to injury, we all had to run from the remote part of the Peltch back to the flags. The distance covered exceeded 4 miles in total today; well done PAX! With two minutes to spare, Freddy Mercuries and Flutter Kicks were done to complete the hour.

    To come full line segment with our counting issues, Pope declared himself 17 for the day.
    Announcements: clearly the looming IPC, plus the Femmes Natales 1 mi / 5k on 9/14. An upcoming double valve is causing some angst.

    Prayers for babies, people with babies, people expecting babies. Pope, now 16 again, prayed us out.

    I heard it thru the honeysuckle vine: Yeah, maybe that was a bit too much running. Special thanks to Cone 2.0. And as YHC was driving over to load up the coupons, it became apparent that everyone was also going to that spot to help. This group never fails to impress.

    SYITG,
    Honeysuckle

  • St. Dominic Rosary Ruck – from Smooth Operator

    8/28/24
    St. Dominic Rosary Ruck

    ManEater
    Honeysuckle
    Wet Tap
    Enron
    Safety Valve

    YHC arrived at 5:17 happy to see the Pax waiting with ruck sacks instead of just a bunch of people less vehicles.

    YHC had a rosary ruck planned which entailed showing the Pax one of the few prayerful activities that had stuck in YHC shift working life. The daily rosary podcast has kept me awake many mornings on the ride home from the plant. This morning YHC picked a meditation on St. Dominic which explains the peculiar way the podcast makers prays the rosary. YHC had forgot his speaker this morning so the pax stayed close to listen in and lift up there prayers to the health care workers and patients in the hospital. We ended up making 2 laps around the hospital and an extra bonus double back loop at the end. After the rosary we discussed ways we say the rosary a little and a-lot about the hospital side by side and a Hatfield and McCoy situation down in the south Houma realm of the world.

    The Pax made it back at 0602 having rucked 2.2 miles. We counted off and offered up one last prayer especially for a Pax member and Pax member’s M having contracted Covid. Thanks to Safety Valve for praying us out and Thanks for coming out and rucking around and finding out.
    SYITG
    Smooth Operator

  • It Was Quite the Palooza – from America’s Best

    30 years ago today: August 10, 1994.
    Do you know where you were? Of course not, you were probably a preteen or a baby. But old man AB does. Lollapalooza, Raleigh, North Carolina. Green Day. The Beastie Boys. A Tribe called Quest. Smashing Pumpkins. George Clinton. The Breeders. Even Shaquille O’Neal.
    Could this PAX even identify the music of these performers?
    Probably not without Honeysuckle, and definitely not without Popeye.

    The warmarama:
    SSH, Abe Vigotas, mountain climbers, slow high knees, regular butt kicks, crazy arms circling whilst picking cherries, maybe something else.

    The First Thang- Left my gas card in El Segundo:

    Begin with a mosey down the road…

    (YHC still clearly remembers casting off his mother’s suggestions to bring extra snacks and drinks for the journey. “Mom- it’s not the Oregon Trail. We can stop at any gas station if we need any of that.”
    Unfortunately, 18-year old AB didn’t think to stop at a gas station for gas… and car no go without the gas.
    It was a different time. It was the 90s.
    No cellphones, no internet. Not a single luxury. So when you run out of gas on the interstate, you just … wait.)
    So we stop on our mosey and just wait.
    And just listen to A Tribe Called Quest (and another yet-to-be-identified band)
    Hold Al Gore until you can’t anymore. Then hold plank until you can’t.

    The 2nd Thang:
    Boulevard of Broken Dreams

    The girls spent too long getting ready, some of the crew wants to stay in the car a while longer, and the guy with IBS has to find a porta-potty immediately. The result of all this nonsense is missing almost all of Green Day’s set.
    Because YHC is still a bit salty about that, the PAX gets to relive some of the frustration of traveling back and forth to the car before finally getting into the show.
    11s
    Start with one Bobby Hurley(at the gates) then run to do 10 no-cheat Merkins (at the car), then bear-crawl back to the start. Continue the process until the physical pain erases the emotional anguish.

    3rd Thang:
    A Brass Kicking

    First song: Brass Monkey
    (Like I said, it was a different time. The 90s were wild with songs normalizing questionable social practices).
    Curls during the song, and monkey-humping goblet squats on each “monkey”

    Followed by “Can I Kick it?”
    Yes you can… flutter kick until you hear that question, then heels to heaven.

    Final Thang: Again, Again, Again
    The best and worst thing about Lollapalooza is all the music and all the stages. Here the PAX got to celebrate and lament moving between the stages.

    4 stages (corners) escalator
    Stage 1: 10 burpees
    Run to
    Stage 2: 10 burpees+20 BBS
    Run to
    Stage 3: 10 burpees+20 BBS+30 merkins
    Run to
    Stage 4: 10 burpees+20 BBS+30 merkins+40 air squats

    About halfway through, the PAX flexed its music chops, as Popeye ID’d Kim Deal’s band The Breeders, then Honeysuckle the Album name, and Cardinal called out the year released (he was 1).
    Then, sometime near the end of the escalator, Popeye made me question my memories, nay, my entire existence, insisting that the Beastie Boys surely didn’t play Sabotage at Lollapalooza ‘94.
    But I SWEAR they closed with it. What was happening? At this point I was somewhere between burpee number 40 and my 112th merkin, so I was beginning to question everything. What if Puddle of Mudd IS my favorite 90s band? Am I actually a fan of Depeche Mode? Maybe I do enjoy omelets?!?!?
    YHC was beyond confused, like Arnold Schwarzenegger at the end of Total Recall, or Joe Biden at the end of breakfast. “Who ate all my toast?”

    Thankfully the beatdown was ending. I pushed Popeye’s ill communications from my mind and stumbled to the flag for COT.

    Super-stoked to have Cardinal out there again, and honored to have him pray us out.

    Always an honor to lead this group (and subject you to some of the Best American music history).

    SYITG,

    AB

  • Mark it, Dude. – from Honeysuckle

    Seven HIMs who were wise and would never compromise arrived to the Peltch for what was clearly going to involve the track. The only real concern for Daryl Strawberry’s or Popeye’s shoes were the warmarama and COT, so everyone carefully chose a spot and we began.

    Warmarama: SSH, Imperial Walkers, Lafayette Nightclubs, Arm Circles (F/R), Cherry Pickers, Self Love, maybe some other things

    Thang 1:

    Mosey to the track. Since the front gate was open, we entered that way and felt like we weren’t sneaking in. As the speaker wasn’t working for YHC this morning, the PAX did not have the pleasure of hearing the Greta Van Fleet (schism-worthy) playlist that was to be the background motivational music. So the first thang was done in silence, other than the heavy breathing.

    Starting at the goal line, bear crawl to the 5 yd line, run back. Do the same thing for the 10 yd line through 50 yd line. At the 5, 10, 15, … yd line turnarounds, do that number of tempo squats. At the 10, 20, 30, … yd line turnarounds, do that number of merkins. This was done to the 50 yard line. This was a challenging task and YHC thought a few times about being merciful, but ultimately no modifications were made and the PAX completed this eventually.

    Thang 2:

    Now on to something a little more fun. The overall idea for the next two thangs were to make the PAX run, but have tasks to complete to take their minds off it. Everyone received a slip of paper with five colored circles. Each PAX’s circles were in different order. Around the track were seven orange cones, five of which were covering markers. PAX had to run around the track, and checking cones to find the markers. Their circles had to be colored in the order that they appeared on the paper. If the marker was the correct color, PAX would fill in the circle. If the marker was not the correct color (or there was no marker), PAX had to do 5 burpees. Also, after you flip a cone, you had to reverse direction.

    As difficult as these instructions were to understand, they were also difficult to carry out. The 5 burpees seemed cruel so YHC did change this to 1 burpee. Eventually, Coyote and Daryl Strawberry finished, and YHC ended the game right before Goose and Pope finished. Depending on how good or bad you were at this game, you ran quite a bit.

    Thang 3:

    Since the markers were already distributed around the track, the PAX paired up and each went to a different location on the track. At the start time, the pairs would play Paper/Scissors/Rock. The loser had to do Big Boy Situps in place. The winner would use a marker to make a mark on their paper (like a passport stamp) and run to the next location. The person doing BBS would keep going until someone showed up to play them. If the BBS person completed 30 before someone showed up to play them, they could get their mark and leave. YHC does not remember the result, but it was quite a while before YHC was able to leave the initial station. That’s a lot of situps.

    Thang 4:

    Quick try again for some Greta Van Fleet (Black Smoke Rising), now using a different speaker, so we circled up and did SSH during the song and mountain climbers during the refrain. But YHC had trouble identifying the refrain. Then mosey back to the flags for COT.

    Announcements, prayer intentions, Goose prayed us out. No clothing to exchange today.

    Thanks everyone for showing up and grinding through today! It continues to be a blessing to be a part of this group!

    I heard it through the Honeysuckle vine: What’s the deal with that Olympics opening ceremony? Can we just watch sports?

    SYITG,
    Honeysuckle

  • Gambling with Minors – from Goose

    YHC showed up at the Peltch fully expecting it to be just Maneater and Jacknife joining the truckful of Dawsons on this Independence Day weekend, but what to my wandering eyes should appear, but Cuz, Honeysuckle, and Smooth, each with a 2.0. I think this is actually the first time I’ve ever attended a beatdown with more 2.0’s than 1.0’s. Even if we counted Pope as a full-grown PAX, the little ‘uns still outnumbered us 7 to 6. And, when we finally got them to put the sticks down, it was time to warmup.

    Did the usuals, but introduced the Lafayette grass-grabbers, increasing the Lafayette warmup exercises to 30% of the total this morning. You see that math? That kind of quick figuring is what almost got YHC first place in the poker tournament. But, almost means I didn’t. An unlikely victor ran away with the prize, but we had some work to do first.

    After the warmup, we moseyed to the farther end of the lower field, and YHC set up Bose with what was assumed to be a blast from the past, a reminder of years we might not want to be reminded of. (…right around the time we learned not to end a sentence in a preposition.) YHC set up Bose, gave instructions, and let fly with “Lucas with the Lid Off”, a top 25 track from 1994 with a Grammy nominated music video. We planked for the duration, toe tapped (reached under and touched opposite foot) for every “catch the vibe” and merkins for every “bubbles”. YHC expected maybe Maneater or at least Honeysuckle had heard it on the radio in middle school, but it was as if I had pulled a deep track from an unpopular album from an obscure Scandinavian country. YHC was like, “But it played on the radio all the time,” and they and every single person on GroupMe were like, “You sure that was a radio?” Whatever–music videos from other dimensions don’t get nominated for Grammys. At least I don’t think they do. But, it did motivate me to see how many other songs seemed to vanish into thin air somehow in future Q’s. More to come on this…

    On to the main event, the F3 2024 Poker Tournament. The PVC cards from the Deck of Death were still wet from last time, so shuffling was difficult, but YHC managed, and each man was given 5 cards while each boy was given 3. The men paired up for one on one 5-card draw poker while the boys paired up for battle/war. The loser of each pair had to do the exercises on the cards of the hand with the harder exercises, and the winner did the exercises on the easier hand. If you did your math, like YHC, you’d see that pretty much every card was used (we included the jokers and the instructions cards–they were wild), whihc meant that there was no avoiding the really tough ones. Someone was going to be doing the 25 burpess or the 400m sprint. The jokers were frog hops between trees, which brought back bad memories from not too long ago.

    After all 5 exercises (or 3 for the wee ones) were completed, the winners went to the winners’ bracket, and the losers to the losers’ and we did it again. After that round, we had a winning winner’s bracket, a losing losers’ bracket, and a bracket that combined the winning losers and the losing winners from the previous round. YHC and Bam Bam were the final pair to face off for the title of King Poker Face, and he won with a pair of 4s. After getting an actual flush the round before (no wilds), YHC could only muster a king-high, so Bam Bam emerged as the champion, and YHC had to do some sprinting.

    With about 10 minutes on the clock, we went all against all, 5-card stud, and somehow Cuz ended up with three kings and a Joker, so the whole PAX did the exercises on the cards in his hand. (Shared suffering is so much better than doing your own sets of different excercises, even if you’re right next to someone else.)

    After this, we hustled back to the flag for about 6 minutes of Mary: WWI situps, crunchy frogs, heels to heaven, wife pleasers, Afflecks, and side planks. COT, intentions offered, especially for the PAX on family retreat, and Coyote prayed us out.

    Awesome work, fellas! It’s always such a gift to start the weekend with such quality men.

    SYITG,
    Goose

  • Bona Fide Odyssey – from Goose

    YHC may have done this theme before, but if so, it’s been long enough, and we were overdue for a romp through one of the greatest movies of all time, O Brother, Where Art Thou? In no other movie can you find a script made up completely of quotable one-liners given by the most interesting and entertaining characters in an unpredictable plot with every element coming from nowhere but left field, keeping the viewer in rapt wonder from start to finish. And, because of this, it’s the only movie YHC knows that doesn’t get old no matter how many times you watch it.

    Six adults and four 2.0’s gathered in the bright summer “gloom”, and YHC figured the leader of this outfit should be the one capaable of abstract thought, so he started the warmup with some SSH and moved through the usuals, adding some WMH and Good mornings since there would be some atrain on the back early on.

    We grabbed the blocks, and it was time to R-U-N-N-O-F-T. We made it to the playground, or the chain-gang work site, and YHC began reviewing the plot: the movie starts with three men chained together, running through a cornfield to escape from a chain gang. One of them, Ulysses Everett McGill, promised the other two share in the treasure he had buried, and they were running to try to catch a box car on a train. The treasure ended up being his wife and children, and he was on a time crunch because she was scheduled to get married to another man (“Mama says he’s bonafide.” “He’s a suitor!”)

    The exercise at this point would consist of two groups of three men, the first group, arms around each other, would lunge walk four steps together before dropping to the ground to avoid being caught, and there doing four Merkins before continuing to lunge walk four more steps, and moving in this fashion to where the “train tracks” were, the far playground area. The other three men stayed put, and acted as the chain gang, doing repeated sets of 10 grave diggers and 15 overhead presses with the block while Bose’, Sr. belted out Po’ Lazarus and Big Rock Candy Mountain. Insights about where to put your arm for the lunge walks and comparisons to high school dates at the movies were shared by our resident mid-beatdown philosopher, Lil’ Cuz.

    After a successful enough escape, we grabbed our blocks and moseyed to the Thunderdome. This would act as our rural radio station, where our newfound partner, Tommy (Suckle?), who sold his soul to the devil in return for guitar lessons, would give us what we needed to sing into a “can”, record a record, and make $10 apiece, unwittingly becoming major celebrities in the process.

    Bose’ rocked “Man of Constant Sorrows”, which rocked our lower abs in the following manner: hold 6 inches for the duration, and leg raises on every non-possessive pronoun that refers to the singer (I, me, he, him).

    In order to stay ahead of the pursuing lawmen, it was time to R-U-N-N-O-F-T again, this time along the road. But, about halfway to the chimney, one of our party demanded that we pull over immediately. He had heard something so irresistable, so heart-rendingly attractive, he, and then we, couldn’t not investigate. We discovered three beautiful women doing laundry in the stream singing the most intoxicating song in perfect bluegrass harmony. We also discovered an abnormally large number of people waliking the park that day and judging us as we completed the following routine (AB’s wearing of The Fire Within may have absorbed most of the rays of judgment aimed at us, but certainly not all.):

    11’s–run instinctively to where the Sirens are (a tree about 10-15 yards away), do 10 J-Lo Pickle Pounders, or Afflecks (as Delmar said, “We was fxin’ to fornicate!”), then like Pete, we was turned into a toad and had to frog-hop back for 1 American Hammer and so on in typical 11’s fashion. The American Hammers were reflective of the two remaining friends who weren’t transformed, but were beat with a tree branch by the Bible salesman, Big Dan.

    The frog-hops were brutal, but that’s justice for you, and on we traveled. Soon, we stumbled into a KKK riitual gathering led by none other than the favorite in the upcoming gubernatorial election, Homer Stokes, the “Friend of the Little Man” who was gonna “sweep this state clean” of “rascalism, nepotism, croneyism,” etc., not to mention “all them people say we come from monkeys”.

    The routine would be a stationary Flora where we partnered up, one partner representing Stokes while the other represented the “Little Man”. They split duty on 100 Coupon Swings (sweeping the state clean), 100 tricep presses (emphatically brandishing the broom overhead) , and 100 curls (lifting up the little man). While one partner worked through 10, then 15, then 20 reps of these, the other, the “Little Man” did Smurf Jacks, then Mission Impossible plank, then LBC’s (all nice and little, or low to the ground).

    This is where we finally lost all pride. If the Sirens or park walkers didn’t defeat us, Stokes and his Little Man did. But we stuck it out, driven by the undying desire to save our wife and children from the clutches of Vernon T. Waldrip, Mr. Bonafide himself. So, in an unexpected turn of events, Stokes was revealed for the man he was, his constituency rode him out on a rail, and the three men were given bonafide jobs in the governor’s cabinet.

    We moseyed with the blocks back to the flag for what the Pax hoped would be a happy ending, but instead were met with sinister authorities, who were ready to exact the highest (or lowest) level of justice. The PAX dropped to their knees (10x, in cadence, as genuflections), and Providence smiled on them as a wall of water came rushing in and swept them all away in a cleansing tide as the valley was flooded by the TWA for the new power plant. 10 Scuba Steves, in cadence, brought us to the surface, where we discovered the roll-top desk in which we found Everett’s wife’s original wedding ring.

    But, of course, his wife had one more heroic task for Ulysses/Everett to complete–YHC won’t spoil it here , bu suffice it to say, she made her mind up (“counted to three”), so we finished with 10 static wife pleasers (hold for 3-count at the top).

    COT, and The Fire Within was bequeathed by AB to Maneater for his timely recitation of some one-liners from the movie, and he immediately squeezed into it like a wet six-year-old putting on pajamas after a bath. Prayer requests and Cuz prayed us out.

    That was a fun one, and a solid crew. Thanks for posting! “I’m with you fellers.”

    SYITG,
    Goose

  • Dadlympics 2024 – from Paradox

    776 BC is widely recognized as the year of the first Olympic games. It began with an annual foot race, a stadion, and blossomed into the over 200 competitions we have today. Origin stories vary but many agree the race began as a simple challenge between friends…or rivals (perhaps both). Many Greek men of this era were very practiced at coalescing into groups at a predetermined area, in the wee dawn hours, one leading calisthenia while the others followed. In Greece, just as in F3 , It only takes a few meetings for the bonds to build, then the comparing of athletic feats follows. As one can imagine, these groups consisted of a variety of characters from the community and YHCs research led to the discovery of ancient sea scrolls depicting an early gathering (meticulously translated to Redneck) as such :

    Upon the Peltchaneus thoroughfare these men gathered:

    Maximus Goosicus -aged learned philosopher, forged in the wisdom of deka kids but the fire within steadily burning though know one truly knows are the flames of his heart or of his bowels?

    Valvenus Saefetyfurst- arriving in the days highest technology chariot. He considers his bronze edition the best, if he only knew his descendants would go platinum and beyond.

    Cuzin Lillius de Punisher-
    beard so thick and luxurious he regarded all face shields as the highest insult. Teaches in the vernacular of Yee Yee.

    Cardinalus of Thebodux- constantly boasting his athletics feats were better served in the Aegean Sea, he would be the origin of all future Olympic swimming. It would take a few years for the sport to gain popularity but it would take millennia to remove his fartsack reputation.

    Montanius de Wilford – returning to glory after many pickled countries were conquered. Only Hippocrates could explain how a 1 day knee injury in February led to 46 pickle tournaments and zero beatdowns but we’ll leave that to the medical historians.

    2,800 years later another group of men would establish another great tradition of athletic excellence. This one to honor the physical, mental , and spiritual battle of being a dad.

    Welcome to the Dadlympics

    Duke
    Light the torch and Roll the beautiful footage !

    Warmup
    9 pax for an intimate Saturday setting and the only thing you really need to know about warmups is Goose unveiled The Fire Within. The remaining warmup period was spent sneaking looks while Goose shook his head and said “hey my eyes are up here buddy! “
    Like a true work of classical art you can appreciate a different beauty with every glance. Huge shout to Gooses M for finding this diamond and allowing it to serve the masses.

    YHC then announced that this day we would honor the duties of a father in 3 parts of Dadlympic glory.

    1. The Track
    2. The Field
    3. The Battleground

    Opening Ceremony
    Indian Run to EDW track with the “torch “ (ole hickory bar)
    Last man drop to 5 torch raises

    Thang 1 —-TRACK

    It doesn’t take long to learn lesson number one as a father…. that your kids are stone cold crazy and programmed to run themselves into direct harm.
    So our first feat would be a “catch me if you can”
    -P1 5 burpees, P2 bur until caught
    -complete 1 track lap

    This crew was barely ruffled and Valves whoop was still logging a sleep HR.

    Next we needed to switch gears into the fatherhood mental toughness test. Balance the budget? Practice a parking lot confrontation? No my friends, we had to go into the deepest waters of Dadversity …the dad joke. Goose had been training us since mid May with his legendary 300 plus merkins dad joke mile and YHC wanted to gift him a few chances to flex his talents and test his troops.

    YHC would give 1/2 of the dad joke then we would fartlek our way around the track with time to think and taste our own brand.
    The answers were then revealed and merkins were used as reward or punishment.

    Here’s a sample of my fave 3 :

    -I have a joke about trickle down economics….(pause and heavy breathing) …but 99% of you won’t get it.

    -I used to run a dating service for chickens…but I was struggling to make hens meet

    – Why couldn’t the produce manager make it to work …he could drive but he didn’t Avacado .

    Goose set the tone with early recognition of ole Phillipe Flop (a Frenchman’s sandals) and Lil Cuz consistently sprinkled in multiple timely assists including a full length dissertation on poultry pronouns. Valve thought alot about the lack of quality neighbors and PCPs in this region. Tana seemed to enjoy the cardio without the heavy burden of paddle sponsorships and endorsement obligations.

    We swapped the fartlek transport for burpee broad jumps (to simulate jumping living room legos) and continued the competition.

    Ending with this doozy….

    -You used to be able to get air at the gas station for free, now it’s a dollar …guess that’s inflation for you .

    A mosey was necessary just to clear the air of the stench of a joke of that caliber .
    The heart can only withstand so much.

    Thang 2—Field

    A dad must be able to flex his dad strength with a legendary single car load trip. The goal here is to show the other dads on the beach where the straps were digging into your wrist so they will burn with jealous rage.

    Carry the Beach Equipment

    P1 garner carry through the “crowd”
    P2 flutter kicks

    The most important of the field events involved practicing to throw your child into that dizzying hybrid of joy and fear.

    Toss your kid to infinity and beyond
    P1 Thrusters
    P2 coupon piggy back ride (nice edit on a YHC miscalculation)

    The Thang Finale —-Battle Field

    American Dadiator

    Rules :

    3 cones in a rough triangle (non Bermuda because I’m still mad) with a bucket of water balloons at each .
    2 pax with a 2.0 defender at each station.
    Center hoola hoop with 10 tennis balls

    Goal is to be the team with the most tennis balls at the end of the game .
    -2.0 defend the nest with pool noodle (3 burpees if hit)
    -5 merkins to get a tennis ball
    -If you get hit with a balloon you owe 3 burpees and you drop your tennis ball
    -10 minutes on the clock

    Teams :
    TanaCuz (picachu )
    ValveDox (gecko)
    Office of Parish Support (Duke)

    Notes :
    – very firm water balloons dont burst and become rubber riot control pellets , there are tattoos to prove it
    – The 2.0 defended nests with deadly accuracy.
    – Several alliances were formed, broken , betrayed, reformed and in general I think we covered 1000s of years of world history with balloons and pool noodles.

    When the smoke cleared Lil Cuz and Tana took the W by one tennis ball thanks to a late assault on the office parish support castle.

    Gear up and back to the flag

    YHC awarded the first Golden Dad to Lil Cuz for his overall performance in the battle, sharp dad joke knowledge and outstanding attitude to laugh and display joy when faced with burpees in soaking wet socks.

    Goose awarded YHC with The Fire Within for cooking with excessive shenanigans when today’s recipe only called for mild shenanigans.

    Lifetime YhC achievement list update :
    1: children being born
    2: being awarded TFW

    COT and Cardinal prayed us out

    At the end of the day as Fathers we are preparing our sons and daughters for the spiritual battle of real life. God provides us many tools of both offense and defense. And just like in our ballooned battle today it doesn’t stop each day from feeling chaotic. It doesn’t stop us from failing when we feel so close to a victory. In fact it can often feel like being busted in the neck with a water balloon after sprinting 50 yards only to do 3 burpees and try again . But if we can stop in the midst of the battle and see His provisions all around us and if we can trust Him, then we can lean on what He gives us. Looking back on the last few years I am truly grateful for the crew He has provided in F3. I hope you all enjoyed a day honoring your fight as Dadiator and I look forward to struggling along side you.

    See you at the ‘25 games

    Dox

  • Shake it Up a Bit – from Goose

    After four or five Saturdays in a row including a game of some sort, YHC thought it prudent to shake things up a bit and bring back the 60 minutes of pain. Kinda like a weekday, but longer, and at a location with tons of options.

    After YHC drug Yankee Jeaux along for a warmup lap, a warmup of the usuals commenced with 10 fantastic PAX. Once completed, we grabbed gear, and YHC started to lead a mosey toward the track, which brought about much angst amongst the natives, especially those who feared the inevitable after having been absent for a couple of months. YJ reminded YHC that this was the two-year anniversary of his initial return after hiatus, which happened to be YHC’s 40th birthday beatdown, and where YJ happened to puke multiple times. The similarities to today were already astounding–and the stage was set for some potential pukage.

    We moseyed on the track up even with the 50 yard line where YHC explained that we’d be getting back to the ground after enjoying multiple weeks of games (which YHC has loved, btw). It’s been great, but the grinding season was upon us. The first grind would be a Dora, but with three men and four exercises. The PAX broke into 3-man teams, and each team set a man on each side of the track (at the 50, halfway point on the straight 100). On one side, the exercises were 200 merkins followed by 200 Morroccan Night Clubs, and on the other, they were 200 lunges (1:1) followed by 200 heels to heaven. The third man would run from one teammate to the other and take up the rep count, like an ordinary Dora, while his guy ran the next half loop to take over from guy 1. This ended up going as YHC expected–the half lap wasn’t so bad, but merkins while waiting for your teammates to get all the way back around to you was reminiscent of a few May beatdowns. Popeye and Valve throupled/quadroupled with the two 2.0’s, Darryl Strawberry and Jacknife, who moved as one. Sort of. While Honeysuckle, Popeye, and Valve seemed to have no trouble with this one, YHC felt sorry for those for whom running is a life-sucker, but these guys also happen to be the ones with the biggest hearts, and they were clearly pushing hard so as not to leave their teammates suffering longer than necessary.

    The second grind was like the first, except we moved over to the bleachers, and instead of one man running a half lap, he would run up or down the bleachers, and the exercises were done at the top and bottom. At the bottom, 200 dips and 200 LBC’s. At the top, 200 step-ups (1:1) and 200 air presses (overhead). The step-ups were the crux for this one, but the men powered them out in enough time for an Indian Run of epic/stupid proportions.

    The 10 were split into two teams of 5 and each was positioned at opposing ends of the track (50 yard line). The man in the back of each line had to run to the front of the other team’s line, where he would choose a type of transportation for that team while he was head of the line. This was done to provide some variation, but also to give the other line’s guy an actual chance of catching up. This went fairly well, and only a few times did multiple new leaders arrive at about the same time. YHC did observe a few interesting choices for transportation. One looked like a walk, but with knees ever-so-slightly elevated. Not sure what this one was called: Tiptoe-down-the-hallway-at-night walk? Dodging-dog-bombs-in-the-backyard walk? High Grass?

    The mosey back to the flag was understandably slow after this last routine, but we still had some time for a few rounds of Mary. YHC thought it would be fun to introduce some of the newer guys to the more creatively named core exercises, like Afflecks (formerly A-Rods: a combination of J-Los and Pickle Pounders) and Nolan Ryans.

    The Animal shirt was given clean for the first time because Pope received it but couldn’t be present to present it. It went to Captain D’s for his effort despite it not being a game day (the large majority of his posts have ended up being games).
    COT and prayers for the women on the ACTS retreat and a few families dealing with tragedy. Maneater graciously prayed us out.

    SYITG,
    Goose