Funny how we get set in our ways, and fail to see the world around us sometimes. With 90 pax away at BRR this past weekend (and me not one of them for far too long), I planned to attend the Raleigh (shudder) 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb, on this 20th anniversary of that terrible event. I was planning to go, taking my 15-year old 2.1 DeNiro, and wanted to represent Carpex with a shovel flag that had NOT traveled to the mountains. A call for help went out on Slack, and the call was answered by Puddles (co-site Q of Cougar Town). He planted the flag in his yard on Friday afternoon, and I retrieved it, doing a little bit of Goose-level modifying (but not to Goose’s standards) to make the flag stand vertically.
Regardless, it turns out that Ollie’s persuasion to attend a stair climb in our own backyard swayed me AND 2.1, so we shifted our gaze to the DTC Library Parking Deck. That turned out to be just perfect. 2 flags stood in honor of the 2 towers that fell that day. Very fitting.
So, about that flag…I needed to get it back to Puddles after the stair climb. Needed to get it to him before Tuesday. Checked the Q sheet to see who the next Q was, in case I could hand it off to HIM…and there was no Q listed. Well, looks like an opportunity! So, filled my name in the blank, let Puddles know, and Bob’s your uncle there I was this morning. Having never posted at Cougar Town, I wasn’t exactly sure where the flag should be planted. Puddles got me real close last night via Slack, and Zamboni got it perfect this morning.
Preblast of a 2.5-3 mile EC run in 1st F netted…0…additional runners. So, I mapped a route (that was exactly 2.5 miles) and dub it the All-Star. It’s a nice route, but there is one annoying dog right about the 2-mile mark, behind a fence. Sorry neighbors in Perry Farms who were awakened by their yapping dog at 5:15.
Back to the parking lot, and in comes Zamboni with about 5 minutes to spare. Hadn’t met him til today, great dude! Next in was Puddles, who I also do not remember meeting but I’m sure we had. Quick round of intros, seeing no one else inbound, recite the mission, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, now let’s go!
Thang One
Jog the pickle to get a little warmed up. Nice sized pickle there. Back to the flag for some prelim work.
Good Mornings, followed by Cherry Pickers, followed by Hillbillies, followed by SSH’s, and some Merkins OMD just to appease Ma Bell (if he woulda been there).
A quick poll of the group for their affinity for running. Hearing a little was good, off we went.
YHC recently (yesterday) found that there’s a park in Apex I’d never been to…West Park, on…West Street. That’s real close to the AO, so of course we were headed there to check it out.
Arriving there after a safe road-crossing, we found a nice basketball court (nice lines!) that we used for:
Lunge walks, 10 squats, walk lunges, squat it out
Bear crawls, 10 merkins, crawl bears, squat it out
Crab crawls, 10 crabcakes, crawl crabs, squat it out.
Mosey over to the shelter to learn about the origin of Puddles’ name, then some irkins, ALRSUs, and derkins.
Finishing there, we moseyed on over towards Hwy. 55, then a quick right, then a right to point back towards the AO. Swung through Albright’s funeral home lot, spoke about attending the AME Zion Church someday, then set about learning about Zamboni’s name origin. Y’all missed the mark by not hitting him with Facepaint. Or Cowtongue.
Thang 2
We got back on campus, and circled around to the backside of the lot, where we found the smelly dumpsters, followed by an adequate set of pull-up bars. There we got in a 3-man rotation of wall-work (irkins, derkins, dips, ALRSUs), running work, and pull-ups, with the runner determining the rotation time.
Thang 3
2 rounds of that was enough, then we moseyed on over to the pickle-ball courts for some corework and stargazing. 4 stations there got us LBCs/plank jacks, Freddie Mercuries/Mountain Climbers, Dying Cock-a-roaches/Chilcutt Jacks, and Homer to Marge/World’s Worst Merkins. YHC pointed out Orion and his belt…no one was impressed.
And…with time drawing to a close, we headed out of the court, up the steps, and made a victory lap around the parking lot to come in at exactly 2 miles. A quick 1.333 rounds of mary, ending on 100s (American Hammers, Hello Dolly, and Boat/Canoes were up first).
COT
Announcements:
Busy October coming up…check Slack. Also, if you need something sold, @Zamboni is your guy.
Praises/Prayers:
Our Pax/their families who are sick or in hospital-we seem to all know a growing handful of people each who have been directly affected over the past 18 months. YHC took us out.
NMS
- Zamboni is a good dude. Showed up with an NC State shirt on and I knew we’d be friends.
- Puddles is stand-up too. Let me take his Shovel Flag. Let me modify it. And screw it up. And still said thanks.
- Both the above were extremely gracious in allowing me to fumble my way through the Q.
- Cougar Town is surprisingly close to me. All those Happy Dinos where we’ve just blasted right past it…it’s got good bones. Like a Cougar should.
- Reading the prior backblasts are really helpful to know what is present on a site, but sometimes the flag pindrop isn’t QUITE perfect. Maybe a photo taken some time when the flag IS in it’s right spot should be posted, so folks would know EXACTLY where to post. I took a SWAG, and even with good intel from Puddles, was WAY off. (or, I reckon I could’ve actually posted once or twice there before today…)
- I’ll be back. It’s in my radius of run-ability to and from. Like BH, HFT, DTP, OTR, DAC, Happy Dino, Das Boot, Sunday Slowsy, and LD (plus Tortoises), it’s in the right radius from my house.
- Thank you for the opportunity to lead!