There’s been a fair amount of mumble chatter emanating from the Southshore lately about the so called H8! beat down. Never to be outdone by our Southshore brothers, the Northshore PAX decided to turn up the volume to 11 this morning with a modified version of the H8! After the standard disclaimer and a warmup of SSHs, Seal Jacks, Toe Touches, Imperial Walkers, Front to Back Lunges, Lateral Lunges, and Windmills, all IC and with rep counts from 10-20, YHC led fourteen men westward on the Mandeville Lakefront to the launch pad for 40 minutes of suffering.
The PAX started the clock and their first lap with one Merkin. This one Merkin was the centerpiece of YHC’s diabolical plan to make the Northshore H8! .01% better than the Southshore version. YHC’s poor reading comprehension and math skills actually made it a lot harder, however. YHC misinterpreted Hawg’s Friday afternoon briefing, realized his mistake 1 lap into the H8!, but by that time the horses were out of the barn and it was too late to recall them for revised instructions. Anyone who has Q’d a beat down know how that works.
At any rate, after that first Merkin (which was terrific across the board by the way), the PAX bear crawled 35 yards, ran out and back for .4 miles round trip, bear crawled 35 yards back to our starting point and then performed 8 burpees and 8 Merkins within each burpee to complete one lap. This last part is where YHC mangled Hawg’s instructions. We should have performed descending Merkins instead of 8 Merkins for each burpee, i.e. 36 instead of 64. Too late. The die was cast, as mentioned above, and there was nothing to do but get on with it.
So we did, completing as many laps as possible in 40 minutes, dropping the number of burpees and Merkins by one on each lap. Whether it was the extra Merkins or our lack of fitness relative to our Southshore brothers, we’ll never know, but no one completed 8 laps in the prescribed 40 minutes. The PAX cheerfully embraced the suck, however, which is something. Even when the wind picked up, it started to rain hard, and the Sky Q started throwing lightening bolts nearby.
Thanks for letting me lead this morning, guys, and welcome to FNGs Survivor and The Hammer. See you in the Gloom.
