Note: Orphan and Garfield were the co-Q’s for this workout, YHC is just posting the backblast for them.
Goal
M. Night Shyamalan directed a sleeper movie in 2004 called “The Village.” It was about a group of people who started a new society in the woods, intentionally shunning modern technology to be sheltered from current times. They were escaping the mistakes of their past to start anew, but there was no escaping the pure adrenaline caused from this little jaunt, tour, and beatdown around a neighborhood in Apex.
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Warm-Up
Lots of chatter already at 5:30 as the masses were gathering early. More and more showing up…you would have thought it was a Justin Timberlake concert given all the giggling and mumble chatter already from a larger than usual crowd.
Orphan and Garfield corralled the group at 5:44 to give out the instructions. Pair on up men and remember your partner, because they will be needed for the entire workout.
Mosey over around the path between railroad tracks and the soccer/baseball field to arrive at a little pile of railroad ties. Spread out in 2 lines, matched by partner to get in the only light work of the morning for the warm-up: good morning, side straddle hops, Abe Vigodas (arm circles).
The Thang
Being in the Peak of Good Living Apex, you need to be sprightly and zippy to navigate the elevated terrain. Case in point, there was a mountain goat navigation of a sierra pile of railroad ties giving the men a test of their balance from the pinnacle height of 20+ feet above normal elevation. Interesting aside, some of these mountain goats have traded agility and balance for wobbly, delicate-stepping and belly aching.
Mosey next on down the back path behind the storage facility to conquer the back spur of the railroad tracks with some severe high knees on each railroad tie to get us back to the Peakway. The men were still a little loose and comments were overheard of folk hero train engineer Casey Jones who sacrificed his life trying to avert a train wreck.
Nice little mosey along the Peakway traveling towards the train overpass. This was our first entry into The Villages of Apex, a dense community of homes and townhomes that provided a scenic backdrop to the cardioversion that was starting to creep up on the fellas. At the base of the road leading up the train overpass, switch to cariocas to get us up the incline.
Once on the overpass, audible call to get the men off the regular path (you can’t succeed by sticking to the normal path) and onto new territory. Way too much mumble chatter and time had come to have more heavy breathing, not speaking.
Scaled down the concrete embankment of the overpass bridge and met on the train tracks below. On both sides of the concrete embankment, we were surrounded by the colorful artistic interpretation of The Villages of Apex with amatuer graffiti overtaking the concrete. Sent the men for a closer inspection by having one partner go to one side for 20 standard merkins with the other partner going to the other side to do 20 LBCs (o-yo). All of this is on the 30 degree incline of the embankment, testing agility and dexterity once again. Agony starting to set in with shouts from the natural wedgie that occurred when your body tries to spiderman itself to an incline and gravity wins by cramming your shorts into your crack.
Met back on the tracks where we planked it out while waiting. Garfield audibled and had the men planking actually on the rails and lifting arms and legs (right side first) to further test agility. Again, mutterings of Casey Jones abounds as musing of who would win in the battle of man vs. train.
Garfield took the lead to get the men further down the tracks and then dispersed into the wooded area to reenact the climax scene of The Village movie where the lead character is chased by the antagonist creature. No human creatures encountered but cries of snake sightings, tick and ant bites were bemoaned from the back of the pack. Where is the humble chatter?
Back to mountain climbing as we scaled the perilous 55+ degree incline for about 20 yards to get back up to the Peakway. Found a perfectly good guardrail that needed to be put to use to kick off the upper body part of the workout. Had 20 dips in cadence and then it was mosey down the hill to get back into The Villages of Apex.
Garfield took over again and circled up the men around the road intersection. Saying these men need to test themselves, because the lead character in The Village (who is blind) tests herself time and time again only to conquer her fears. Well, he called out the men to see if they could rise to the challenge and be as brave as a blind girl (jury still out on this crowd). He created a variation of a classic exercise–20 carolina scorpion dry docks, bro-yo, in cadence. Much grumbling ensued and hints of “What Are We Doing?” start to filter to the surface.
Sensing that there was still too much chatter, Garfield decided to put shoulders into action. Seeing much asphalt ahead of us, and some nice parking lines conveniently in that path, he called out bear crawls with standard merkins occuring at each line, starting with 5 merkins and increasing by 1 at each line (ending with 9 at the last line). Mumble chatter starts to die down with echos of heavy breathing starting to overtake the background.
Garfield continues the next exercise with more bear crawls to get us further down the road. This time, 5 plank jacks at each line, increasing by 5 at each line (ending with 30 at the last line). The whimpering started to kick in as shoulders were pushed to the limit.
More asphalt ahead and it was an Indian Death March to the next station at the end of The Villages of Apex neighborhood. Circled up the men to pour it on with a simple round of Guantanamo. Pains of agony started to seep in or perhaps it was altitude sickness given the peaks and valleys we had traversed.
Mosey back towards the AO, and noticed some perfectly good lines that needed to be painted along a stretch of Old Raleigh Road. About 100 yards of painting and the comments sank to a new category that could only be described as “grumble chatter.” In the near distance was the Peak water tower, with men speculating if the path would take us to the tower for partner exercises. Spoiler alert–Garfield planned exercises involving the tower, but excessive mubble chatter delayed our arrival and ability to squeeze those in. Onward to home base to keep it on time to catch the Mary.
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Mary
Circle up at the flag for monkey humpers, American hammers, windshield wipers and Have A Nice Day.
Count-a-rama: 36
Name-a-rama: 10 RESPECTs, 22 meh, 4 HATEs
BOM: Orphan took us out
NMS
This was our first time doing the Q. Appreciate the opportunity to lead the group on a little different adventure than what has been done before.
Thank you for the amazing times we have