The Samson
Attendance
Goose
Pope
Yankee Jeaux
Paradox
Goldilox
Wet Tap
Americas Best
Honey Suckle
Safety Valve
FNG (Tana)
Lil Cuz
Cardinal
Piccadilly
Smooth Operator
YHC started planning this beatdown pretty much the same way I normally do. I read through the list of Saint’s feast day, I look at what happen throughout history on this day, and I read the daily mass reading for that particular day. Well, this time the 1st reading for 12/19 really stuck out to me. Judges Chapter 13 the origin story of Samson, is what YHC read. Samson happens to be the name of one of the babies YHC and his M lost a couple months ago. So, this story hit me like a ton of bricks, and I quickly read the rest of the story. You see originally, I thought about taking it easy on the PAX since I had been out of pocket for a couple of weeks, but as soon as I read this, YHC relinquished control for what was going to happen.
YHC was allowed to switch over from day shift to night shift, on the morning of this Tuesday Tough. I even slept in a little and got to the Stage around 0430 to unload a couple tires and mauls. As YHC sat anxiously awaiting the PAX. 0505 came around and YHC was nervous, but the PAX came through for me. We were 14 strong for a brisk 40-degree Tuesday Tough.
Warmarama
SSH
Imperial Walkers
Windmills
Arm Circles
Cherry Pickers
Butt Kicks
High Knees
A few things from the story I found inspiration from were:
– He was consecrated a Nazirite from birth by an angel. A Nazirite is someone who will not eat or drink from the vines or strong drink, will not cut his hair, and will not touch a dead body.
– Samson killed a lion with his bare hands.
– He killed 30 Philistines over a riddle he gambled on.
– He killed 1000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey.
– After he was captured and had his eyes gouged out by the Philistines he pulled down a Philistine temple and killed himself and a whole lot of Philistines that were there mocking him.
– Samson had superhuman strength when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and brought him to victory over the Philistines.
With those things in mind lets jump back to the workout.
Thang 1
The Samson
After picking up the speaker, our coupons, and a pair of rims from Wet Tap, the Pax moseyed down to the old coupon corner for this morning’s insanity. Due to Samson killing 1030 Philistines I figured this would be a good round number of reps for the PAX as a collective to shoot for. All the PAX lined up on the first crack and awaited instruction. 1030 was divided by the total number of PAX in attendance and 77 total reps was the amount each PAX would be required to do to move to the next exercise. The PAX whom finished first could either help the slower PAX get to their number or wait for the PAX to finish and do pickle pounders since this was the sin that lead to Samson’s demise. 2 lucky PAX would be allowed to beat on a tire with a maul with all their reps counting to our total 1030. This seemed to be lost in translation from YHC and PAX and the tires became additional coupons for the likes of Wet Tap and Pope who performed admirably this morning. The PAX seemed to be mildly annoyed by the number of reps but were willing to get after it, until YHC mentioned that the first exercise was Lion Killers (Thruster) due to Samson killing a lion with his bare hands. You could have sworn that I kicked Yankee Jeaux’s cup of coffee over and took Tana’s pickle ball paddle. This response quickly caused YHC to say go and that worked pretty well to calm the storm. YHC put on some slower than I remembered music to get us through the beatdown. YHC crossed 40 when the American Beast hit 77 and begged me to let him do some of my reps. YHC let the exercise go for a couple minutes longer and allowed a couple other guys to cross the 77 rep threshold before I pulled the plug to get to part 2 of the exercise.
Part 2 of the exercise is or mode of transport to the next street crack. Our mode of transport was moving like and inch worm with a J Lo in the middle of it. YHC calls these Delilah’s. Basically you extend your brick out as far as you can, drop your elbows on your block, perform a J Lo, and then get your feet to the edge of your block and repeat until you go past the second asphalted line in the concrete. This seemed to be less troublesome to the PAX than part one. After this came Part 3.
Part 3 was about remembering where we came from. This means we would be running suicides all the way back to our starting spot. The thoroughbreds really shined on this part. After part 3 we would be ready for exercise 2 part 1. Note part 2 and 3 are repeated for each exercise.
On the start of exercise 2 everyone seemed to accept the fact that we would be trying to take on the impossible… Or so I thought. YHC announced the next exercise being 77 WW3 sit ups and the ever quiet always chill Safety Valve looked at me like I had pink eye. After hearing his concern and doing a couple reps I quickly realized by golly he was right. After checking on the leader’s rep count YHC dropped the number of reps down to 25 and 25 WW2 sit-ups because he is a gracious Q. After this we performed Part 2 and Part 3 in the same manner as before.
Exercise 3 happened to be YHC’s favorite exercise and would tie nicely into the theme of this beatdown. Man makers with a donkey kick was on the agenda, but due to time restrictions YHC cut out the donkey kicks. The donkey kicks were in there because Samson, filled with the Spirit of the Lord, killed 1000 Philistines with a jawbone of a donkey. Once YHC announced the exercise Boss Man Goose had a safety briefing on how to do a correct man maker, which gave YHC a chance to catch some wind since it seemed to not want to stay in the lunges. After this, YHC experienced some tremendous feats, such as Pope and Wet Tap knocking out the reps with tires instead of coupons and Cardinal and Dilly pushing their bodies to the limit and giving 100% effort. All in all, a couple people reached 77 and we quickly moved into Part 2. Part 3 was cut out due to time, so we wasted no time in jumping into exercise 4.
Exercise 4 was a spur of the moment decision, and it was a good one. Coupon swings were called out and we did coupon swings till 0600. After this we hustled back to the Stage to count off.
Once at the Stage we counted off. Lil Cuz announced he was feeling very Samsonish which tells YHC that a Part 2 will be needed for this saga. During COT we talked about RunCajunRun coming up and Saturday, Yankee Joe and Tana are having rival Christmas Q’s. For more information contact Tana, and Yankee. After this Pope prayed us out. This beatdown for me was all about putting your trust in God to give you the strength to get through what seems to be impossible. Just like Samson, we need to turn to God and trust his plan. Either good or bad outcome, God will get us through.
Thanks for coming along with me fellas
SYITG,
Smooth Operator
