Q: Doogie
PAX: Doogie, Frisco, MIA, Simmons
With Carpex Culture month coming up I thought I would temporarily dust off an F3 tradition that has fallen by the wayside in our explosive growth: the Back-Blast. Yes I know those robot-generated things we use now have their uses, but sometimes I miss the full fledged, Take-a-seat-on-the-groan-throne-because-this-is-Frisco-Back-Blasts of yesteryear.
——
Typically, the Q writes a Back Blast for a workout but since today that was Doogie and—as they say in Med school, “C = M.D.”—I knew that was a lost cause so it was up to me.
After I dropped the M off at the airport this morning, I decided to take the blue pill rather than just using the “it’s too late to make it to a workout” excuse. I’ve had a resurgence of motivation recently (well, okay, since this last Sunday) and was on an unbroken two day streak. I scanned the Carpex schedule looking for a 5:45am AO where I would only be 15 minutes late—or basically on-time for me. And then I saw a 6:00 AM-er: Full Throttle.
As I was mentally debating what to do the decision was made for me by the helpful RDU traffic cop standing nearby who inquired if he could offer his foot to help me remove my head from my anus. I declined that help and quickly moved out of the 3 lanes of departure-drop off traffic I was blocking and headed to this new (for me) AO.
Unfortunately, in my haste I failed to fully scroll down the Carpex schedule page so I missed that the Style of Workout was “Fatass Killer”. Little did I know I would pay repeatedly during the morning for that oversight.
When I arrived at Full Throttle, I could see that the PAX had just started warm-ups. I was pretty stoked! Only one minute late! Rock on! And then the morning started to go pear shaped.
I realized my wife had grabbed the keys this morning on our way to the car and I hadn’t asked her for them when I dropped her off. I wasn’t sure if they were in the car. Theoretically, they had to be but cars have a lot of bells and whistles these days so maybe it didn’t need the key after you started it. I had this horrible vision of me turning off the car then being stuck in the ghetto that is Prestonwood, trying to convince an Uber driver to brave it. I frantically started lifting things off the center console and cup holders looking for the keys. Then I looked up and noticed three PAX staring at me in horror. I realized what my frantic, repetitious, vertical hand motions might look like from a few yards away. I considered just driving off but then magically my keys appeared.
As I got out of the car, I heard Doogie say “Oh it’s just Frisco,” as if that explained everything. I wasn’t sure how to take that but it didn’t matter because Doogie, apparently the Q that day, led us off on a mosey into a different Prestonwood gang’s territory. Risky but the other two PAX, Simmons and MIA, nodded at a few gang members, pretending they were middle aged joggers, passing by. So maybe there was some kind of street-arrangement.
We ended up in a peaceful little park with a gazebo inside of a roundabout. I would soon come to hate that park.
What I also didn’t know was that the previous night Doogie had been mistaken as the father of some guy near his own age. So this workout was going to be the equivalent of Doogie’s “hold my beer”.
Thang 1:
7’s on the hill. Burpees and star jumps (yes I clarified three times he said ‘burpees’)
After 7s, Doogie called a pickle circle mosey. I started off towards the gazebo that I assumed we would circle.
“No, the pi-ckle,” Doogie said, gesturing at the 20 mile(ish) roundabout then sprinting off after MIA and Simmons.
I took off after him, regretting those two banana nut muffins I had failed to resist in the middle of the night.
Thang 2:
We ended up back at the gazebo (where I had wanted to go in the first place, um Hello…) and did some sort of Merkin, ab and combo thing.
Then Q called another pickle mosey.
“Um,” I said when I was able to get the oxygen directed away from my brain (hey something’s got to give) to my mouth. “You missed a ten count back there. Like four of them, actually.”
“You want to do ten-count cadences?” Doogie asked, impressed.
“What?! No!”I said. “Wait, is this a high tempo workout?”
“What did you think ‘FULL throttle’ meant?” MIA asked.
“I thought it meant you had bad 5G signal out here,” I said.
I remembered at that moment the last time I worked out with Doogie was when he had sprained his ankle and we were doing Bruiser workouts. Briefly, I wondered which ankle that was but then shoved the thought away. I had been spoken to before by Carpex Leadership about injuring PAX just to improve the attendance numbers at the injury recovery / limited run sites. And I wasn’t the site Q at Claymore anymore so those jokers could do their own “recruiting”.
We did two more rounds of that Thang with a break for pickle runs between each round.
Thang 3: (yes, 3!)
It got kind of hazy at this point.
I think Doogie led us to yet another gang’s territory. I commented that it looked like GTA 5 was filmed there. MIA and Simmons exchanged a knowing look and Doogie said “Don’t make a big thing out of it.” I didn’t.
We did picnic table leg work.
Thang 4: (yep…)
After we had finished “sending a message” to that territory’s gang by moving all their picnic tables around Doogie led us off again. Simmons mentioned something about Y Guides which I assume was the gang whose territory we were just leaving.
At the new location we did lunges, curb merkins, curb dips and frog jumps (well, okay, some of us did and some of us modified to delay their impending Merlot).
Finally it was over.
“How much time left?” Doogie asked everyone.
Simmons checked his watch. “About 4 min—“
“3 minutes and 33.6 seconds,” I blurted out.
Doogie nodded and led us off towards the flag on a mosey. What a glorious site! The flag! I had never felt so patriotic. A few yards from that was my car. I was going to lay down and sleep in that car. I was going to cover its insides with crumbs from Bojangles in about 3 minutes and 31.2 seconds. I…
And then my car began to get farther way in my field of vision.
Thang 5:
I looked around, we had turned down a side street with a “No Outlet” sign. I thought: Please let them be taking me down here to beat me up as some kind of initiation. Just no more running. No more burpees. No more “more”!
Unfortunately, it was not the beatdown I was praying for. Instead we ran for like 200 miles until we looped around in a cul-de-sac. I was just clearing the top of the hill that led out of the side street (someone had maliciously increased the road angle by 40 degrees while we were in the cul-de-sac) when Doogie said:
“Okay, let’s sprint it back.”
I’m sure it was the right ankle, I thought. Definitely the right ankle…maybe if I just…
COT:
4 Mehs (one that felt like an Honor)
Announcements: Full Throttle does not mean “bad 5G signal”.
Prayers and Praises: I’ll be honest. I could barely hear over my own sucking wind. I vaguely remember laying face down on the pavement and the guys stepping on my back to make the Ball of Man. Or maybe that didn’t happen. Who knows…
NMS:
I am known as a man of few words.