366 days ago I saw my father alive for the last time. Taking a queue from Saban, I thought it’d be a good idea to Q as a way to remember him and to give myself some perspective on the gift of life I still have. I would have done it the day of, but the 28th would have been 610 Stomp so I figured what’s one day.
Warmup: some number of SSH, Grass Grabbers, Windmills, Arm Circles, Mountain Climbers, IWs.
Workout: Tabata. The app I use doesn’t allow for increments outside of 5’s so I couldn’t do my planned 72/28 (72, my dad’s age at passing, 28, the day he passed) so I opted for 70/25.
Music: Some Spotify Playlist titled “60’s-70’s Mix” but they definitely snuck in Huey Lewis & the News so, let’s call it a grab bag of 60’s-80’s.
3 Rounds of 8 Excercises with 1 minute recovery between rounds.
Round 1:
Decline Merkins on the block
LBCs with block
Squats
Overhead Press
Right Hand Rows
Block Swings
Heavy Freddy
Calf Raises on the block or holding the block
At Kuch’s encouragement, I shared some fun stories about my dad. This one was my dad forbidding my family from eating at R&O’s ever again after he lost the Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo when a fisherman caught a Tarpon in Lake Ponchartrain in his nets and was encouraged by the owner of the restaurant to drive it down to the Rodeo. He did, and weighed it in as the winner. We never ate at R&Os again.
Round 2:
Incline Merkins on the block
Big Boy Situps with feet in the block
Skull Crushers on your six
Curls
Left Arm Rows
Walleyes (seated or standing)
Right Legged Wife Pleasers (foot on the block)
Left Legged Wife Pleasers (foot on the block)
This story involved my dad getting arrested in 1998 for attempting to bring a gun on a commercial flight to Florida. He was going fishing in Key West with some friends and my mom packed his bag for him, unaware that the bag had a false bottom where he stashed his .38. Security found it and it scuttled the trip and also gave my school’s principal a lot of fun firepower the rest of my 8th grade year. Thankfully this was all explained away pretty easily and there were no charges pressed. What a glorious time the 90’s were! I also speculated that perhaps my father was D.B. Cooper.
Round 3:
8 Count Body Builders
Flutter Kicks with block
Step Ups
Box Cutters with block
Normal Rows
Thrusters
LBCs
Curls
COT: Prayers for Tool’s father as he shared with us that his health is waning. Also prayers for Abacus’ mother, who also passed on March 28th 3(?) years ago. Even as we age, losing our parents is never easy, as I’ve learned this past year. There’s a childlike part of our brains that just expects them to always be there, even when we know they cannot.
As an aside, I want to share how much F3 has meant to me in my grieving and reflection this last 6 months.
I was at a birthday party for a friend’s daughter when Jesus Juice asked me how I was doing. An innocuous question we ask each other thousands of times but for some reason, that day I was open and honest with him: “Not great.”
He offered to me to come workout on Monday, and for some reason, I did. Since then I’ve poured a lot of myself into fitness and diet, and I’ve achieved a lot of wins but most importantly, I’ve started to feel like someone I haven’t felt like in a long time. There’s encouragement and fraternity here and I’m forever grateful for his kindness that day.
Additional thanks to my regular brothers at AO-CityPark, Kuch, Saban, Abacus, YaMomAnEm, Snooze, Mama’s Pride, High Rise and many more.
Rest in Peace, Pops. <3
