People go to the circus for myriad reasons: entertainment, witness the odd and curious, be stunned by magic, or savor a jalapeno-stuffed deep-fried twinkie burger. However, when it comes to The Flying Circus, only the stoutest of men dare show up to test their mettle within the Big Top. 14 PAX couldn’t resist The Circus’s allure, ignored the temps (they were so small that ignoring was easy), and performed incredible feats with the human body (I am mostly certain each PAX used his own). No matter how unfairly I think I have been branded a “Running Q” (see you Tuesday at Claymore, Frisco), I embraced it for today.
Beaker’s Beginnings (The Warm-Up)
After a frantic, yet ultimately fruitless, search for Callahan, we set off into the gloom. A clockwise jog around the bus loop afforded the opportunity for butt kickers, high knees, and karaokes. That brought us back to the launch site where we painted some lines, before finally making our way down to the track and the single greatest warm-up pad in all of Carpex. Go ahead, try to dissuade me. It’s a pitch-black, giant, flat slab of concrete just the right distance from the launch site, down the perfect flight of stairs for whatever tickles your fancy, and directly adjacent to a track and football field (a triple-jump pit also for that matter, but nobody’s used it yet). Told ya’. While there, we did:
- 20x Accelerating Side-Straddle Hops
- 10x Good Mornings
- 10x Willie-Mays Hayes
- 10x Merkins
Beaker’s Beatdown (The Thang)
Everyone seemed sufficiently warmed, so it was time to get started with our SprIntervals. What are those? Glad you asked. Breaking out into groups based roughly on mile time (mules/donkeys/clydesdales = 10-minute mile+; draft horses/thoroughbreds = 9-minute mile; unicorns/pegasusses (that doesn’t look right) = 8-minute mile), we ran 4 laps thusly:
- Lap 1 - Sprint 100 yards, mile pace for the remaining 300
- Lap 2 - Sprint 200 yards, mile pace for the remaining 200
- Lap 3 - Sprint 300 yards, mile pace for the remaining 100
- Lap 4 - Sprint 400 yards, mile pace for another 400
Groups were stagger-started every 15 seconds so that we’d all arrive back at start at roughly the same time for a Mary to end each lap. While waiting for your stagger start, PAX performed World’s Worst Squats (Regular, jump to Sumo, jump to right leg forward lunge, jump to left leg forward lunge). That’s over a half-mile of sprinting and 1.25 miles total for those of you keeping track at home.
The PAX seemed so sprightly and not gasp-y that I was sure they would love what was next, which was to grab a partner and play “Dear Lord, Please Catch Me If You Can”. It goes like this:
- Partner 1 lunge-walks counter-clockwise around the track while Partner 2 jogs it clockwise.
- Flapjack when they meet, always keeping the lunge-walk going in the same direction
- Repeato until the lunge-walk completes a lap
- This exercise needs a name, I’ll accept nominations in the comments
That’s another mile jogging plus about a half-mile lunge-walking, unless you’re Biner or Hi-Liter, then it’s about a half-mile long-stride-walking.
Since no one’s quads were screaming or quiver-y at this point, we jogged back up that perfect flight of stairs to the basketball court where we had just enough time to:
- Line up in People’s Chair
- One at a time sprint to the end, knock out 10 merkins, then sprint back, while all the PAX commented on your form, or lack thereof
- Claps, World’s Worst, Wide Grip, Diamond, tearfully Perfect, and Hi-Liter’s Roadhouse Engelbert Humperdink merkins all featured
That brought us to time.
Beaker’s Bellies (The Mary)
Mixed in among all the running above
Beaker’s Benediction (The COT)
COR/NOR:
- 14 (4 Respects, 9 Meh, 1 Hate)
Announcements:
- KKC
- I just saw The Bull (Churham) listed for 26Oct2019. They take their announcements as seriously as we do
Prayers/Praises:
- M’s (Disco Duck, Snots, Swag)
- Sky Blue and Franklin Co-worker recovering from pulmonary embolism
- Goose’s boy recovering from his 6th surgery in 2 years, hopefully the last one for a long while
Beaker’s BS (The NMS)
- While PAX were arriving and chatting about the cold, but not torrentially wet weather, Ma Bell commented on how cold the breeze will be. PAX exchanged puzzled looks in the still-as-the-grave morning, until Ma Bell BROUGHT THE BREEZE
- The only site record broken today was the number of mentions of Hi-Liter’s groin, which was 1. It’s a low bar (wink, wink)
- Ma Bell and Hi-Liter did a great job syncing their swatches as both their Stravas had us at 2.8 miles and within a foot of each other on elevation…probably accounted for by the groin thing
- Pigeon turned 42 today. Happy Birthday! However, there has been a rash (two) of PAX not Q-ing their birthdays. Guys, we Q everything here. Birthday, Q. Anniversary of F3, Q. Wedding Anniversary, Q. Anniversary of a time you thought of getting married, Q. Started a blog, Q. Drank too much last night, Q. Won big at bridge, Q. Really, there shouldn’t be an empty slot on a Q sheet anywhere in a 50-mile radius of Carpex.
- I see a Liverpool/Pigeon Co-Q birthday make-up in the future
- Unicorns were pretty thin on the ground after the first lap
- For a good time, read this BB (https://f3churham.com/vegas-road/) then go get you a Floyd Q if you can, he always cooks up something good.
Great to lead as always, gentlemen. Until next time.