Im over a week late so apologies if I missed anyone or got their name wrong. We mixed it up this morning. We stayed together for the most part for the first half and had some jazz fest artists’ music playing in the background. After disclaimer, we did some quick active stretching. Then it was a “blue” Indian run to where esplanade ends (or begins depending on how you look at it). We circled up and did a few more exercises then it was all out sprint down esplanade to dog park across from Santa Fe restaurant. From there we cut over toward the fairgrounds mixing in some exercises with sprints until the entrance to the jazz fest. It was on your own back to the flag following the same way we came. About 5.0k distance covered in honor of the 50th fest. A little bit of time for some stretching then the circle up for name o Rama, intentions, and announcements. Fun work out this am. Thanks screwtop for the pic.
At the zenith of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and its satellite states held May Day parades every May 1st to demonstrate their military might for the Free World to contemplate. Fortunately for those of us old enough to remember school time nuclear war drills in which we learned laughably to take shelter under our desks, the threat never materialized. That didn’t stop the Northshore Cold Warriors from celebrating May Day this morning, however.
After a warmup of Seal Jacks, Good Mornings, SSHs, Windmills and Imperial Walker Squats, the PAX mosied over to Bedrock for
19 Romanian Deadlifts with a nice sized rock
then to the Justice Center for
19 Bulgarian Split Squats each leg and 89 Russian Twists IC
all to celebrate 1989, the year the Berlin Wall crumbled.
The PAX then mosied to the front of the Justice Center to partner up for some BOMBS; that is, 50 burpees, 100 OH hand claps, 150 merkins, 200 big boy sit ups, and 250 air squats…one partner performing exercises while the other ran up the ramp and down the stairs to relieve his partner.
Appropriately, the PAX finishing first performed isometric Wall sits instead of planks.
Next, we made our way to the Veterans Memorial for a plank parade, lateral plank walking the Memorial semi circle there and back.
Back to The Gipper, who certainly played his part in the collapse of the Evil Empire, to close things out with a countorama, nameorama and prayer.
14 Pax including 1 FNG posted in the gloom at City Park next to the imaginary flag.
The QIC (YHC) was commemorating a belated birthday Q (first Q in over a year), and thought it would be fun to do a few of his favorite things. But first, a quick mosey to the grassy neutral ground for a little warm-up COP.
SSH – in cadence x 20
Hillbillies – in cadence x 15
Self Love – ic x 10
Merkins – ic x 10
Slow Windmills – ic x 10 (or was it 15?)
10 Burpees on your own
Then the Pax followed a slightly lost Q to “the Refinery” – a bit farther away than YHC remembered for some simple exercises in groups.
Burpess x 10 for the count
jump the snake
pull ups
dips
knee ups
And with all that out of the way, the fun was about to begin. Mosey over to the big grassy area next to the water – it was nicely lit by the construction lights at the Children’s Museum. Pax put on a show for the construction fellas.
First: Tabata!! (20 seconds on, 10 seconds off x 8) Exercises: mountain climbers, burpees, squat jumps, lunges, and repeat.
Now that the PAX was nicely lathered up, some more fun was to come: Animal movements! Out about 10 yards and back, 5 burpees then the next movement. Movements: bear crawl, frog jumps, crab walk, shoulder rolls (followed by dizzy burpees)
There was some mumble chatter about this time, especially about prickers and dizziness. YHC was having a blast.
On to the climax of the morning – mosey to the track for … 1000 meters of Hades!! Run/sprint 400m, walk 100m Run/sprint 200m, walk 100m Spring 100m, walk 100m
By now, we had run out of time for anything besides the short mosey back to the imaginary flag and the COT where we named SlowJo.
Man, what a beautiful Saturday morning in April. It’s really one of the best months of the year in NOLA. 20 men gathered on this beautiful day for some F3. The usual disclaimer and off we go.
We moseyed to the great lawn, unusually soggy and muddy on this day, for the warm-up COP:
SSH x 20 IC
Peter Parkers x 20 IC
Abe Vigodas x 10 IC
Arm Circles 10 Forward, 10 Backward IC
Hill Billies x 20 IC
Mountain Climbers x 20 IC
Next a short jog to the front of NOMA where we crossed paths with the MuscleShip, on their turf. Here YHC distastefully lead the Mothership pax in 10 Monkey Humpers in the general direction of the MuscleShip pax. Sorry @Abacus, not very tasteful of this Q. I do apologize.
Then we lined up for an inverted BLIMP pyramid along the tree line, or something like that. Exercise, then run to the next tree.
5 Burpees
10 Lunges each leg
15 Imperial Walkers each leg
20 Merkins
25 Plank Jacks
30 Squats
30 Squats
25 Plank Jacks
20 Merkins
15 Imperial Walkers each leg
10 Lunger each leg
5 Burpees
We moseyed to the end of Lelong Drive for the next COP:
Side lunges x 10 IC
Low slow squats x 20 IC
Tree Huggers x 10 IC
Then travelled back down the opposite side of Lelong Drive, heading back toward NOMA, with animals on parade. Parade for 6 trees, doing a different animal at each tree. Then a Route 66 back to NOMA, stopping at each street light for 5 jump lunges with each leg.
Back at NOMA, pair up for 2 rounds of Merkin ladders. One pax does a Merkin ladder up the steps of NOMA, 8 Merkins at the bottom to 1 at the top, while the other pax does alternating step-ups at the fountain. 2 rounds.
Mosey to the baby foundry. Each pax does 10 pull-ups, 10 dips. 2 rounds.
Mosey to the fence at Tad Gormley stadium for calf raises. Regular calf raises x 20 IC, toe-in calf raises x 20 IC, toe-out calf raises x 20 IC.
Finally mosey back to the flag for some hamstring stretches before the finish. Count-off, name-o-rama, intentions, and a prayer. Welcome to our FNG, Donatello. Thank you for letting me lead.
In a feat only New Orleans can accomplish, the PAX arrived to a cool yet muggy morning at 5:30 today. The sun might even have been peeking through the clouds as we set off into the humid air for a run. With the H8 last week, the new sprint workout, and the general level of intensity at the workouts lately, YHC thought a simple run this morning – no burpees, no sprints, no Mary – would be a nice change of pace. And so, that is what we did.
One of the nice things about a run is that it gives you time to talk. I personally got to run with several different PAX and catch up on all the latest. Among those I was able to run with was Steinbrenner from F3 Memphis, who is in town for a convention. We traded some war stories, learned we were both former high school wrestlers with a tendency to eat an entire large bag of chips in one sitting, and talked about the myriad ways F3 had affected our lives. Somewhere along the way, he looked me in the face and said “F3 has changed my life”.
Later I went to lunch with a friend, and we were joined by another PAX member from this morning, Briefs. Briefs is new within the last month or so, but you wouldn’t know it from the workouts. As we were walking out of the restaurant and chatting about the run this morning, he looked me in the eye and said “F3 has changed my life.”
They say good things come in threes, and it is F THREE, so I will say this much: F3 has changed my life. I think the myriad ways in which this statement is accurate are well known to all of us, and to suggest it’s only a physical change would be silly.
So thanks to all of you for that, as well as the opportunity to lead this morning.
We began by running down the stairs to the 1st floor and then back to the top of the Mountain. At the top 50 monkey humper’s were enthusiastically performed.
Back down the stairs to the 2nd floor and up to the top for 50 imperial walkers.
Back down the stairs to the 3rd floor and up to the top for 50 lunges.
We continued this with 50 Freddy Mercury’s and finally 50 shoulder tap murkins.
With energy to spare, Quarterpipe went for a solo bear crawl while the rest of the pax sucked wind. Strong!
Then it was time for Dora 1-2-3.
50 Burpees, 100 Plank Jacks and 150 LBCs.
Next a circle of Mary:
15 WW2 Situps, 20 Penguins, 20 Hello Dollies, 20 Low Country Crabs, and 20 American Hammers (lead by Doullie).
Finally down the stairs to the benches for 20 dips and 15 durkins.
Due to a weekend of crawfish, second-lines, retirement party, and jazzfest, the fearless Q had lost his voice. So after a quick warmup of side-straddle hops, windmills, and imperial walkers, the silent, but deadly workout began. The circuit order was drawn in chalk on the ground of the picnic area. Pax would complete an exercise, take a lap (appx .25 miles per lap), then start the next exercise at their own pace.
Total run length: 2.4 miles.
Jump squats – 50
Stacked foot, staggered hand muricans – 25 per side
R+L leg step ups – 25x per side
Dips – 50
Burpees – 25
Box Jumps – 25
Decline muricans – 25
Power ups – 25 per side
With 10 minutes remaining, we started a Mary at the flag with 2xPAX at a time doing pull-ups instead of Mary for the duration of the exercise. Mary exercises included, american hammer, hello dolly, hello rosalita, box cutters, LBCs, V ups, and penguins.
Overhead at the end “never regret a workout, but that was a TOUGH one.” As always, it was a pleasure to lead!
This morning 9 of the fastest F3 PAX decided to take on the Danger Zone. I gave the disclaimer at 5:30 a.m. and we moseyed on over to the Track a.k.a. the Danger Zone (DZ).
Warm-O-Rama We did a light mosey around the track with high knees, butt kicks, carioca right/left side. We finished warming up with a few 30 yard warm-ups that honestly I forgot what they were!
We then headed on over the the Agility ladders. Here we did the following: – Two feet in each square then sprint 30 yards – Jumping Jack Feet then sprint 30 yards – Icky Shuffle then sprint 30 yards – One left foot hop then sprint 30 yards – One right foot hop then sprint 30 yards
We did a 25 second breather and we were onto a 1 mile run which included Sprinting the straights and jogging the turns. Some of the PAX did a lap cool down while others (myself included) were gasping for air—last time I eat Mexican at 8:00pm before a workout!!
Next up we did 3 heats of 100 meter sprints – due to the popularity of the Danger Zone in just 2 weeks we had to split up into 2 heats. After the first round we realized we needed some more stretching so we stopped and did some more stretching before Heat 2 and 3.
Apparently the stretching didn’t help Jesus Juice as he has been complaining all day at work about how he pulled a buttocks muscle and is limping around the office like a wounded animal.
We then used the agility ladders for some ladder push ups X2. We did a cool down stretch and moseyed back to the flag right on time.
We did Count-o-rama, COT, and Prayed. Fun time this morning in the DZ hope Jesus Juice gets his rear end back for next week.
After a quick disclaimer and Warmorama (18 x SSH, 18 x Toe Touches, 9 Windmills), the Pax moseyed westward and partnered up to commence a frisbee golf challenge. We had 18 holes i.e. crawfish trays (‘tis the season!) with a total course length of ~1 mile. For each hole, one partner threw the high quality, PDGA-approved disc (courtesy of Dollar General), while the other partner performed the following exercises between strokes for the respective holes. Partners alternated throwing and exercising throughout the course.
Between Strokes
Holes 1 – 3: Bear Crawl
Holes 4 – 6: Wheelbarrow
Holes 7 – 9: Lunge Walk
Holes 10 – 12: Groucho Walk
Holes 13 – 15: Frankensteins
Holes 16 – 18: Burpee Broad Jumps
Once the team completed a hole, both team members performed the following exercises with the rep count equal to how many strokes the team took to complete the hole.
Hole Exercise
1 # x Freak Nasties
2 # x Jump Squats
3 # x Derkins
4 # x Squerkins
5 # x Copperhead Squats
6 # x Hello Dollies
7 # x Gwerkins (As if the Squerkins weren’t bad enough)
8 # x Burpees
9 # x Donkey Kicks
10 # x Plank Jacks
11 # x Sister Mary Katherines
12 # x Big Boy Situps
13 # x Crunchy Frogs
14 # x Groiners
15 # x Body Builders
16 # x Dive Bombers
17 # x Box Jumps (No one completed as time ran out)
18 # x Patty Cake Merkins (No one completed as time ran out)
Team BEAN HAMMER started out rough with the first throw on the first hole in the Lake, but quickly recovered.
Team STEVE GRUNDY put on a racy display of Squerkins, which are very likely to never be incorporated into another F3 Northshore beatdown.
Welcome back two Pax back from Injured Reserve, Butt Splice and Tanked Up!, who inadvertently won unattributable points for best team name: BUTT TANK!
Thanks to team JOSE RUSSO for scooping up the coupons at the end.
Team scores were recorded on scorecards provided by the Q and tallied below with penalty 6s for unfinished holes. This simplified scoring normalization yielded team Shooting Sparks as winner of the 2019 Zoorich Classic. Congrats guys. Wear this badge of honor proudly!
Counterama, Name-orama, ceremonial naming of FNG – Speedy Gonzales, and Butt Splice prayed us out. 19th hole coffeeteria at our usual spot.
Thanks for allowing me to lead, Men. Hope you enjoyed it as much as YHC had dreaming it up. SYITNG!
YHC is not always on the forefront of technology. Frankly, for all its so-called convenience, it makes us slaves to drudgery and loses the connections that count. Some call it old, but remember it could be #Respect. Anyway, thanks to the SkyQ, around 5am this morning, YHC read Reluctant Yankee’s weekly missive to learn that he was to Q at Rock City. So off to Metry and a flag. With a goodly showing in the Gloom, the PAX was off after a Disclaimer.
Warm Up COP:
Imperial Squat Walkers x20IC
Abe Vigodas x20IC
Mountain Climbers x20IC
Merkins x20IC
Hillbillies
The Thang
With rocks, the PAX moseyed to the football field for a COP of 20 overhead lifts, 20 curls, 20 rows, and 20 squats, then a mosey around the track. Rinse and repeat for 15 reps, then rinse and repeat for 10 reps, and finish with another 5 reps, each time with a mosey around the track.
Circle of Mary
Russian Twist (with rock) x20IC
Bench Press (with rock) x20IC
Dying Cockroach x20IC
Penguin x20IC
LBC (with rock) x20IC
Flutter kick x20IC
Low plank 1 minute
J Lo x20IC
Return the rocks and mosey back to the flag for a countoff, name-o-rama, name our FNG (#TClaps to Fast Tax for getting out his 2.0, who smoked it around the track), and thanks to SkyQ. Glad I read my email, because I would have otherwise posted at The Skinny. JV
