We'll take it from here, Cardinal

 Posted on January 13, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  876 words  |  

Early Thursday morning, YHC was stirring and came across the news of young Taylor Phelps, F3 Cardinal, out of Knoxville TN, who had horribly passed away during his Virgin Q (VQ) at a workout on 1/11/23. For Thursday’s workout, I incorporated one small element of his planned workout, 15 double count Freddy Mercury’s. We did them at the very end of our workout, and after the workout was over, I shared that his planned workout looked extremely hard, and I would be hesitant to try it. [Read More]
ashbury  bubba  cataracts  cauliflower  clockwork  crimson  deuce  disco-duck  doggy-paddle  floppy-crust  meat-loaf  old-maid  red-ryder  sega  slim-shady  smokey  sour-mash  the-commish  triple-lindy  wahoo 

Finishing second still feels like a win

 Posted on November 23, 2022  |  13 minutes  |  2698 words  |  

The Mike Fiorito Race for Second Place (MFRFSP) is a backyard ultra brought to you by Carpex’s finest ultra running shield lock, the Beige Bros. The goal is to reach 100 miles in 1 week by completing: 5 miles per day for 5 days Monday-Friday leading up to the main event 75 miles in a single day, Saturday, by completing a 5k at the start of each hour for 24 hours (0000-2300) You can run, ruck, or walk. [Read More]
badlands  banjo  chops  clockwork  gtl  gump  hobbit  jigglypuff  largemouth  michelob  old-maid  overflow  ramsay  skipper  soft-serve  squatter  steaks  the-super  trike 

12 Ways that Year 2 Differed from Year 1

 Posted on November 17, 2022  |  2 minutes  |  424 words  |  

Following up on my 12 pieces of advice from last year’s f3versary backblast, I thought it might be fun to reflect on how things were different over this second year. To summarize, I would say focusing and finding my place was the theme for this past year. Q’d a lot more this year (30+), and am more comfortable, yet oddly perhaps less prepared, at leading. Wrote way fewer backblasts. Used to write one per workout. [Read More]
bumper-sticker  chicken-little  chiquita-banana  clockwork  decal  hamm  i-beam  imp  peaches  queequeg  ramsay  red-ryder  slim-shady  snooki  steaks  triple-lindy  wahoo  yahoo 

F3 Carpex 6th Annual CSAUP, The Odyssey

 Posted on October 31, 2022  |  4 minutes  |  688 words  |  

93 PAX and 2.0’s descended on Downtown Cary for the 6th annual CARPEX Odyssey. Special thanks to Bogo and Badlands for doing the heavy lifting on the Q for this event, and to PetSounds for crushing the SAG Q and post-race 2nd F. Also thanks to all of the SAG support volunteers, Site Q’s, shirt designers, and inspirational musical selections. On to the workout…Rooney kicked us off with an opening prayer and then handed it off to Badlands for the warmup at the home of BO. [Read More]
16-steves  amway  badlands  banjo-nomo  bartman  bean-counter  big-red  biner  bogo  bolton-the-hill  bronx-bomber  build-a-bear  bumper-sticker  burt-r  cauliflower  cheap-trick  chicken-little  chiquita-banana  chop-block  claven  clementine  clockwork  coco-crisp  coney  dadbod  decal  disco-duck  doggy-paddle  earhart  franklin  fruit-of  geek-squad  greenbow  gump  hamm  happy-gilmore  hi-liter  high-school-musical-hsm  hobbit  hoppinjohn  horatio  i-pity-the-fool  ic-light  kidney-stone  kilmer  kwik-stop  ldb-lil-drummer-boy  liverpool  lucky-charms-boy-band  ma-bell  magnolia  mr-safety  old-maid  one-direction  overflow  parker  pet-sounds  pigeon  pivot  poncherello-2  pongo  press-2  prodigal  red-ryder  riptide  rooney  saban  schlitz  schroeder  screws  skipper  slugger  smokey  sour-mash  squatter  steaks  stolen-valor  stretch  sunshine  texas-ranger  theismann  trike  triple-lindy  two-factor  verde  viewmaster 

GrowRuck 32: Neptune's Adventure

 Posted on October 13, 2022  |  19 minutes  |  3881 words  |  

Four pax from Carpex attended GrowRuck Training Event (GTE) 32 this past weekend, dubbed Neptune’s Adventure, hosted by F3 Hampton Roads. For three of us, this was our first GTE. GTEs are F3 leadership development events that are run by a cadre of volunteer pax at the national level who have gone through specific training programs (and are often former military and/or medical personnel) that help them design an experience meant to push men to the point of failure so that they can learn more about how to accelerate themselves, others, and the Pax, people, and regions back home. [Read More]
clockwork  hello-kitty  parker  shut-in 

Beer, Run, Repeat: A Blue Ridge Relay Story.

 Posted on September 21, 2022  |  12 minutes  |  2401 words  |  

The Blue Ridge Relay felt different this year. Maybe it was the return of the slapbands for runners at the exchange zones. Maybe it was because every team seemed scrambling to backfill people leading right up to the day-of. Maybe it was because unlike in past years, there was a genuine race to the finish (and race to the bottom) amongst Carpex teams. Maybe it was because so many people are swearing up and down they aren’t going to do it again next year. [Read More]
bumper-sticker  chicken-little  clockwork  decal  hamm  lucky-charms  peaches  pongo  schlitz  short-circuit  triple-lindy  wahoo 

Flying Cirqus

 Posted on July 7, 2022  |  5 minutes  |  862 words  |  

My first post at Flying Circus featured a Pom Pom Q* involved flipping coins, ball toss, card decks, disc throws, and ring of fire burpees. So when asked to Q, YHC wanted to do something inspired by games. While crawling the interwebs for ideas, I came upon a video of a PT tailoring a stretching routine for Cirque du Soleil performers, and an idea was formed. 7 showed up for a fast, sweaty 5k EC †. [Read More]
badlands  beignet  cadence  clockwork  garden-nomad  geek-squad  high-school-musical  kidney-stone  overflow  pivot  pom-pom  screws  stolen-valor  yahtzee 

Smoking the Smoky Mountain Relay 2022

 Posted on May 9, 2022  |  12 minutes  |  2385 words  |  

For the first time, Carpex sent two 9-man teams to the Smoky Mountain Relay. Coincidentally, this was the first year that SMR had a 9-man division, and perhaps less coincidentally, the Carpex teams took 1st and 2nd place in that division. We’re going to cover a lot of ground in this backblast, from the teams, their experiences, the course, to a comparison with the perennial favorite Blue Ridge Relay (BRR), so buckle up, because this is going to be a bumpier ride than the “100% paved” abandoned Nantahala wilderness road of Leg 26! [Read More]
banjo  biner  clockwork  decal  gump  henny-penny  ma-bell  mr-safety  mr-wilson  one-direction  one-four  pbx  ramsay  red-ryder  saban  suck-up  track-star 

School's out for winter

 Posted on January 25, 2022  |  3 minutes  |  467 words  |  

If you’ve lived in this area for more than 5 years, you know the story. If it snows on Day 1… expect Day 5 to still be a snow day. And so it was in Wake County this weekend. It snowed (barely) Thursday night so Friday was naturally a snow day. Then came a solid dumping Friday night followed by two days of beautiful, snowy and generally above freezing temps on Saturday and Sunday. [Read More]
all-ours  bubba  cauliflower  clockwork  flip-flop-thats-singular  loom  ma-bell  moped  pierogi  www 

Full throttle on a rainy day

 Posted on December 8, 2021  |  3 minutes  |  556 words  |  

“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” Since New Year’s is around the corner, I thought I’d start off with a quote from the estimable Robert Burns, author of Auld Lang Syne. Also befitting since YHC had planned a Q without looking at the weather, and then at 10 o’clock post meridiem, looked at the weather and saw it’d be 40 degrees with 100% chance of rain. [Read More]
all-ours  clockwork  doogie  jello  simmons