Legend has it that Leap Day William lives in the Marianas Trench and only leaves that comfort every 4 years to swap candy for the tears of children….
*Duke busts into the writing room*
“No Dox , No! That’s 30 Rocks story …
Tell your own! “
Ahem..
10 pax lept to the Lions Den on a windy spring morning eager to potentially meet a mythical leaping fellow. Surely he would be there ?! The GroupMe hype was crystal clear!
Instead they found the great value branded Leap Day Williard. He only puts on sleeves if someone croaks and he crawls out from under a north La overpass every 4 years to bum a nicotine patch and exchange sweat equity for the tears of grown men. He has 45 minutes to maximize calorie burn and he definitely ain’t got time for your chatter or to pronounce simple nouns correctly.
Those tv execs can go kick 30 Rocks , this is a real man’s Leap Day celebration!
Even when presented with the dollar store version of a leap day hero these men stayed true to their HCs and settled in to, as one pax put it Best, Carpe that extra diem bawwwz!
Duke! Roll that beautiful beatdown footage!
Warmup
YHC wrapped up some finishing touches of the pre-formation lap just in time to find that gaggle of leaplings calf stretching around Aslan. Took them through the usual fare with 29 SSH just to make sure Jeauxs HRV was still activated.
Truncated warmups a bit to make room for a little musical leap day overture.
Warmup Thang
“Might As Well Jump”
-Leap Day Trivia
Started Van Halens “Jump” with Al Gore and Bobby Hurleys on Jump. The pax would need to guess the year the following albums were released and each correct guess would buy them 30 seconds off. White Meat (in his 3rd post in a week! T-claps ) dubbed these “discounts” and the pax would need all 4 (1 for each of the last 4 years) to reduce the song to 2 minutes of quad torture.
Enron smelled the clue early that the answer would take place in a Leap Year. AB followed with his continued uncanny ability to dissect a competitive event into its vital organs, he haggled YHC down to 2 guesses per song.
Songs :
NWA released Straight Outta Compton and YHC was released Straight out of Homer in this year.? The pax waffled a bit but steered the ship back to 1988.
Eagles – Hotel California (76)
Jeaux got this album for his 10th birthday so this was a soft toss.
Johnny Cash – Folsom Proson Blues (1968)
Some rings of fire still burning from Jersey Mikes. Ya hate to see it.
And the Finale, the song we had listened to the wholeeee time!
Van Halen (1984)
Da Main Thang
Leap Cajun Leap
2 yHC objectives here :
1. Attempt 4 laps with 4 stations of a race with increasing burpees at the end of each , symbolizing the extra hours we tack on each year and then delete with leap day.
2. Recall all the amazing beatdowns we had this month with creative ways of distracting us from the monotony of running.
Formation Lap (The Circuit)
YHC led the group in an intro of the course , this was from Safety Valves F1 beatdown. The formation lap, while revving the heart to pump your dreams, also gives you essential time for strategery. Some pax used this wisely and sized up potential partners while other choices could only be described as poi form.
Da Stations (below) were roughly strewn around the civic center into Aldi and back to the Lion.
Station 1 (3 cones in parking lot in a triangle )
-From the Wet Tap Pyramid Scheme and Cardinal Ladder
Partner Lunge Walk to cones
Increasing partner squats then decrease
3-5-3
Mosey
Station 2
Alphabet Marathon (Enron)
20 American Hammers
Leap Frog to Cone
20 Zombie Crunch
Mosey
Station 3 Bountiful Grace …if we can trust. (Goose beatdown)
10 Goosies each
Partner drag across to cone, swap
10 Goosies each
Mosey
Station 4 The Poi-Son OhrWurm (YJ/AB)
10 “Never Say Never”
Shoulder Tap Merkins
CrawlBear Through Volcanoes
(To help AB conquer his lava phobia)
If you knock one over, 5 star jumps
10 Shoulder Tap Merkins at the end
YHC could see the pax awaiting a layer of instructional complexity (AB has them trained) and a bag of recently purchased bandanas were presented to answer.
As they were informed that one partner would be blindfolded and led through the lava by the sight able pax. They would then mosey to the lion in a half blindfolded trust run.
Burpees after each round representing the excess hours that Leap Day takes care of each year.
6-12-18-24
Teams were carefully or chaotically selected and we had 29 minutes to see who could compete the most laps. I’ll break it down from YHCs view of each team.
SafetySuckle (or HoneyValve, if you need a PG rating)
One of the greatest pairings in F3 Thibodaux history these two politely crushed the pax and gave out attitude adjustments all while having a telepathic conversation about whether you should cut your lawn in concentric circles or parallel lines. They got separation early in the first volcano run and never looked back .
JeauxDox (country rockstar vibes)
Like the second team in the F1 pairing our job was mostly to keep steady pressure on safetysuckle and to show RonnieMeat what real form and real men look like. Things were fairly tame until we broke out the blindfolds….
They say the loss of one sense heightens the remaining senses and as YHC tightened the knot the lights went dim but everything else intensified. The concrete beneath my feet , the grunting pax nearby in my ear, and then …what’s that …my spider senses were tingling …a smell in the air , we had surpassed verbal communication and now Jeaux was sending a flatulent telegraph to inform me he had ketchup and onions for dinner and couldn’t run that fast. A gastrointestinal bond was formed forever.
I guess Seger was right this whole time.
We were wild and young and free …against the wind.
RonnieMeat
Draped in a signature Walmart Stars and Stripes they kept a great pace. Representing finance and upper echelon poultry this was truly Americas team. They spent most of their time filing form complaints on JeauxDox that will never be processed.
AB-Pop
Recently YHC discovered there are mutiple genres of Asian pop (K-Pop, Mando-pop, C-Pop) and it seems the trend worked its way back west.
In perfect synchrony this duo traversed a significant “muscle density “ differential that spawned an Eric Cartman meme and ultimately led to AB leaving the band for a solo career. Popeye could not be reached but his publicist sent a smirk emoji reply. Talks of a reunion tour are unlikely.
The Trio
Ponz-Cardinal-Dilly
Multilevel marketing at its best they continued to let the pax know they would have gone further with just one more teammate. If I had just one pic of that 3 man squat it’s the only promo material we would ever need!
At 5:59 SuckleValve had reached 2 and 3/4 lap and was declared victorious.
We capped it off with a blindfolded race back to the flag and no ER trips.
Counting , naming and announcements
RCR closing day
Thanks to everyone for all forms of locomotion and logging miles.
Over 12k was raised for Youth Run Nola and 6k for Wibo Foundation.
Local pax Stats breakdown and award ceremony pending…
COT and Cardinal prayed us out
A privilege to lead men.
Epilogue
Early in the beatdown planning committee as I was riffing on the different uses of Leap I came upon “Leap of Faith”. First I realized blindfolds were a must and second that the theme of trust and total surrender have been recurring a lot for YHC this lent.
I had hopes the blindfold would be a physical challenge and maybe even slow down some of our thoroughbreds (it didn’t) but I underestimated the real fear that set in when trying to run in total darkness. Would I fall? Where was the curb? Do I look stupid? Surely we should be there by now? Am I being passed up? I fought the urge to reach up and claw it from my face and regain control. But Jeaux was there , calmly , confidently informing me that he could see everything ahead of me. After the panic stricken first lap I was ready for round 2, and as I began to feel the fear creep back in he said “grass is coming up dox, feel it on your feet”.
That phrase has stuck with me since.
It gave me hope and the visual of a place that was familiar.
It has also been a reminder to me that we aren’t home yet. That most days I may be suffering, reaching , even clawing for the control I’m used to.
But if I can accept the grace to fully surrender and know God can see the whole race then not only can I serve him but I can serve at full speed with any gift he has given. It doesn’t remove the obstacles nor alleviate the suffering but He’s there guiding , holding us, and providing the resources to serve.
And one day, when our race has been run, when our struggle has ended and the battle is fought. That we may hear:
“Home is coming up, you can feel it on your feet”.
SYITG,
Paradox
