FUN!!!

Since this is my one year anniversary backblast I’ll start with some of the mushy stuff. It will probably be longer then the Muggo but shorter then a Callahan Christmas speech. So over a year ago my M was at a continuing education class and some guys she knew from Raleigh were talking about F3. One of them who had only gone to one workout and quit was complaining about how early it started and how many push-ups they had to do. So my M came home and told me “this sounds horrible, you’ll probably like it you should check it out.” So I went on the computer saw that there was a workout literally right now the street from me, Claymore and after one infamous bathroom stop I was at my first workout.

Skipper had the Q and luckily he diligently wrote his backblasts so I can tell you that Calvin, Frisco, Pickles, Press On, Repeato and Willy Wonka were all there. Without the backblast I really can’t remember much about the workout. Instead I’ll tell you what I do remember clearly. Skipper was calling exercises and Frisco started talking s**t, now at this point I was doing GoRuck events and thought the Q was the same as the Cadre and that bad things would now happen, but instead Skipper started giving it right back and then Repeato joined in and Repeato and Frisco went back and forth for a while. I remember it because they were having fun, the good natured ribbing, the inside jokes I didn’t get. It seemed foreign to me, workouts were something you endured and pushed through, they weren’t fun. But here everyone was having fun and thats what I wanted, thats what kept me coming back time after time even on those mornings where you just want to stay in bed. So today admist the kickball chaos I had a moment of reflection, the kind you can really only have when Jock Jams is blaring and one grown man is throwing a ball at another grown man’s head, that exactly one year later Frisco and Repeato are at the exact same spot going at it in the exact same way but instead of being on the outside looking in, I was right in the middle of it having a ton of FUN.

Ok enough of that, I’ve been ordered by the Nantan to explain how a perfect F3 Kickball game works.

The Warm Up

Sir Fazios, Seal Claps, Fazio Sirs (trademark pending). Honestly I was excited to get started so we just kinda flew through this part. I told the PAX to line themselves up from who has done F3 the longest time to the shortest and that they had 2mins to accomplish this or penalty burpee would be given. Apparently everyone knows exactly when everyone else started because it took them about 10 seconds. The 7 old guys…I mean vets were one team and the 7 newbies made up the other team. Since I was on the newbie team I made the Vet team go pick up rocks.

The Thang- GAME ON!

So the Vets team was kicking first, they lined up along the first base lines with their rocks. Person in the front of the line was up and kicking. The newbies lined up along the third base line and the first person in line was “fielding” and the second was pitching. So the pitcher would pitch the ball and when the ball was kicked the person fielding would have to sprint to where ever the ball was kicked. Meanwhile the kicker had to stop 1/2 way to 1st base and do 5 Merkins, 1/2 way to second base was 5 Burpees (much like real life Frisco never made it to second base), 1/2 way to third base was 15 Merkins and before you could get to home plate and score it was 10 Burpees. While this was going on the bench players for the kicking team were cycling through rock exercises of tricep extensions, overhead presses, curls and rows while the fielding team was rotating sumo squats, l/r lunges, wall sit and imperial walkers. The outs came pretty fast so YHC adjusted to allow each team one full time through the lineup before switching.

So this is the foolproof, well thought out, perfectly planned way to have a workout kickball game…and it all descended into glorious chaos in about five minuets.

The rest is a blur but from what I remember, I believe that Kitty started the rule infractions with a slight blocking of the base path, which led to the totally reasonable response of Frisco trying to decapitate Pet Sounds with a cross body block. Speaking of Pet Sounds one of his pitches had so much bounce to it that it nearly hit Tang in the head (and Tang is pretty much damn near the bottom of the list of people I’d want charging the mound if I was pitching) I thought I had an easy out on Pickles at 2nd and I swear he jumped at least five feet vertically to avoid that tag. I’m not sure which went downhill quicker the form on the burpees or how many constituted “10”. Highlight of my day was Bartman’s counting out of actual correct burpees which was “ZERO…ZERO…ZERO…You are on ZERO”. Hello Kitty managing to imitate both The Babe and Hulk Hogan in one game. The Newbies may have *won* 3-1 but I quickly realized that putting Hello Kitty, Repeato and Bartman on the same team ment that we got absolutely annihilated in the trash talking game, Frisco tried to keep us in it but thats just a murder’s row.

Also key to any great game is the soundtrack, big shout out to Chewie for his perfect suggestions. Songs included Jock Jams, Playing With the Boys, I am a Real American, Eye of the Tiger, You’re the Best Around, The Hey Song (you know it when you hear it), We Will Rock You and Thunderstruck.

If there is a word limit on these things I’m sure I’m over it but thanks to everyone that came out and thank you to all you guys. I can’t stress enough how blessed I am to have F3 in my life and how much you guys mean to me.