AO: Gauntlet
QIC: Walkman
PAX: Stray Cat, Free Lunch
Conditions
72(!) and sunny. Lot’s of early activity on the track this morning, our two RESPECT Pax showed up ready for a killer beatdown.
Warm up
Lap and a half mosy around the track, 3 wide, with each pax calling out different movements we could do while mosying – high knees, jog backwards, side slides, ohp, buttkickers, arm circles. Triangled up for Windmill x 10, monkey humpers x 10, third grade exercise x 10.
The Thang
Build a Burpee workshop!
Used one of the small hills by the track. Pax lined up on the track and performed a movement while one member moved up the hill. When that member arrived, next guy went, and so on. Repeated at top of the hill and then back down.
Movements were all the pieces of a burpee: Ground touch squat, Frog’s, Merkin, Frog, Squat jump. Jogged backwards up the hill and lunge walked down it. Repeated each movement at both top and bottom before moving on to next movement. Once we’d built the burpee, we did the last round with full burpee’s at top and bottom.
Mosied to the amphitheater type stairs (need to name this space). Now that we had a burpee built, it was time to deconstruct it. Started at the bottom and box jump/broad jumped up the concrete seating. At the top, performed each piece of a burpee – Ground Touch Squat, Frog, Merkin, Squat Jump and then jogged back down the stairs. Repeato in a descending ladder – 10 reps, 9 reps, 8 reps, etc. Pax was TOUGH through this – YHC was close to spilling some Merlot on several occasions.
Finished with box jump burpees. One box jump, one burpee. Two Box jumps, two burpees…..until 7 of each. Nearly splashed merlot here as well.
Mosied back to the field.
6MoM
Rallied on the sideline for Frozen Freddies x 20, 6 inch hold x 20.
COT
Shared a collection of perspective and quotes that I’d been gathering over the last few months.
“Hard Times make Hard Men, Hard Men make Soft Times, Soft Times make Soft Men, Soft Men make hard Times.”
“Hard things are hard”
“Growing is hard”
“There is the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Choose one.”
Also shared from the F3 Nation Slack Q Source channel – Initiation is the first movement. Incrementally moving in the direction of advantage is the initial goal. Baby steps are good. Consistent baby steps leads to habit, growth, and discipline.
These have been bouncing around in my brain for the last few months. I’ve realized that if you’re not bumping into ‘hard’ regularly, then you’re probably not growing. For me, the last 2 months of Go30 have been great for this. The discipline required to consistently hit 1800 calories, to make decisions I don’t want to make, has been excellent. The actual thing (1800 calories, journaling) is less important (not unimportant!) to me than the discipline of doing something challenging and growing through it. I’ve found a lot of value in ‘leaning into my own reluctance’ as a good way for me to find meaningful ways to grow – whether it’s the 100 merkins a day, grow ruck, journaling, Iron Pax, etc. Pushing my own reluctance and engaging it directly has been very impactful.
Stray Cat shared his thoughts about the “hard times…” quote above. That he contrasts it to the men fighting in WW2 and fears that we’re much softer, but that F3 has helped him continue to grow Hard (hah). Free Lunch encourage him that if Stray Cat were alive then, he would have been one of those Hard Men too. We also discussed that “Discipline is Freedom” and how our perceptions of that have grown throughout our lives.
Free Lunch also shared that he’s identified some of the challenge with this around the language his daughters use – describing something that happened vs. the responsibility in what happened. His example was “the salsa spilled vs. I spilled the salsa.” I’ve seen the same in my girls. Taking responsibility continues to be a theme we all see as a critical to growth, discipline, and being the men we want to be.
Great work Men.
-Walkman
F3 Portland 