F3 New Orleans

Tag: Splash Pad

  • Birds were the word – from Russo

    Not cold this morning after last night’s storm. I was so busy figuring out if I was a better Bob Breck or Margaret Orr last night to set my alarm, so I rolled over onto my phone around 4:53 and hustled out of bed, arriving juuuuuusssst before Pelican and Bird made me an honorary member of the Aviation Krewe (code name: Dodo).

    Warmup – 10x IC
    Seal jacks
    Toe touches
    Arm circles
    SSHs
    Self Love
    Torso twists
    Cherry pickers

    Thang
    Walls of Jericho at the Treen / Training / Trane Center (7 count of seven exercises 7 times around)

    – Crunchy frogs
    – Lunges
    – Star jumps
    – Merkins
    – Monkey humpers
    – Shoulder tap plank jacks
    – Jump squats

    Mary
    7 calf raises then up and down the pilot house (7 times)
    IC 7x LMCs
    IC 7x wife pleasers
    IC 7x Rosalitas
    IC 7x Hello Dollies
    IC 7x Right and Left Leg Bridges
    A slalom of the columns

    COT, Name-o-Rama, and prayer wrapped us up. Fun fact to go: David Treen was Louisiana’s Governor in God’s decade, the 80s, sandwiched between Edwin Edwards 2nd and 3rd terms. Edwards took those four years off to practice holding out his hand for kickbacks and signing casino licenses. At least I think that’s right. I learned it in 8th grade Louisiana History, shout out to Mr. Altobello, Raider pride!

    SYITG

  • Birfday Cake – from Russo

    73 degrees, San Diego, no wind to speak so a very humid morning. Conversation this morning centered around soft hands, melting servers, pregnant coworkers, and single vs. double ports.

    Warmup (10x, all IC)

    -Toe touches
    -Self love
    -Arm circles
    -Grass grabbers
    -Air presses
    -Imperial walkers

    Thang: somewhat inspired by our conversation on how many different exercises we do, YHC took the opportunity for a reminder of just that with a cakewalk around the Pad. It wasn’t my birthday, but it was for Fred Astaire, Bono, and John Wilkes Booth, so we moseyed around singing Elevation (in the rain) while we plotted to do horrible things to our least favorite Lincoln (YHC’s was Riley, head coach of LSU’s next football opponent.)

    The cakewalk order:

    45 Seal jacks
    44 High knees (2 is 1)
    43 SSHs
    42 Plank Jacks
    41 goof balls
    40 squats to a
    39 Hello Dollies
    38 Calf raises
    37 Apollo ohnos
    36 Freak Nastys
    35 step ups
    34 flutter kicks
    33 butt kicks IC
    32 Peter Parker’s
    31 imperial walkers
    30 Shoulder taps
    29 American hammers
    28 Monkey Humpers
    27 Merkins
    26 Smurf jacks
    25 wife pleasers
    24 Rosalitas
    23 crab jacks (crab position – think reverse plank jacks)
    22 groiners
    21 Bear crawls (counting your right hand as a rep)
    20 murder bunnies
    19 Wide merkins
    18 slow squats
    17 crab cakes
    16 circle ups
    15 Urkins
    14 Durkins
    13 Sister Mary Catherine’s
    12 LMCs IC
    11 diamond merkins
    10 star jumps
    9 donkey kicks
    8 arm circles (should have been 8 count body builders but we were running short on time)
    7 merkins (the first repeat, will need to change that up for the real one)
    6 Box cutters IC
    5 Carolina dry docks
    4 Wife pleasers (the second repeat)
    3 jump squats
    2 burpees
    1 minute plank

    COT, name-o-rama, announcements, and prayer closed us out. Steve and Bushwacker have Q tomorrow, there’s a Beast to be unleashed on October 19th, and life is good.

    SYITG

  • These Hands, They Look Like Good, Strong Hands (or: Are You Happy To See Me, Or Is That a Buck Moth In Your Pants?) – from Steve

    [*Again, a situation where YHC could use a GIF (hard g, soft g, doesn’t matter), for those who didn’t grow up with a luck dragon named Falkor, being chased through the swamps by The Nothing and a bad tempered, green-eyed wolf. And as for the buck moth in your pants, well, that’s not something we’re going to delve into here… file that as one of those had-to-be-there moments.]

    So. A fairly big (six!) crowd at the Pad this humid morning – and, incredibly, Bushwacker somehow simultaneously posted to both the Splashed and the A1C. He and his clone are working overtime this month to blow the lid off those Pax Miner charts.

    But – before Bush’s clone rolled in with a buck moth in his pants, and before any of the other guys rolled in – it was just Russo and some young woman with a knee brace knocking around a soccer ball. She kept suspiciously re-parking her car in various spots around the trailhead – maybe looking for some privacy? Unfortunately for her, on this particular day we happened to be bear crawling all around the trailhead, which proved slightly awkward when every now and then we’d turn a corner and catch a glimpse of her coming out of a thicket of bamboo with her ball. It was very bizarre, though I’m guessing she thought the same – seeing six men crawling up the corridor and down the street.

    And that, obviously, was the main order of the day – bear crawling. We started on the eastern-most end of the corridor, crawling the long straightaway first before stopping for:

    10x merkins
    10x slow squats
    10x Apollo ohno’s (2 is 1)
    10x star jumps

    More crawling, this time to the stage, and again the same 4 exercises. Then to the west end of the corridor, and yeah, you get the idea. We eventually found ourselves at the bus depot for the usual leg business:

    Step ups, freak nasties, step downs, freak nasties, Bulgarians, freak nasties, jump overs, freak nasties – all x12 IC.

    Bear crawling our way back to the start, we swapped out the initial 4 “rest” exercises for:

    10x big boy situps
    10x crunchy frogs
    10x american hammers (2 is 1)
    10x 100’s (4 is 1)

    This is when things started to get a little dicey and when YHC realized just how soft I’ve gotten lately – quite literally. I guess wearing gloves the last few years has made me a baby because my hands have been jacked up since that beatdown. I don’t know if it was the loose gravel or what, but I’ve got blisters all over them. And the big boys would’ve likely have added a flayed coccyx to the list of injuries (hmm, that does not sound right), but most of us wisely took to the grass for those.

    COT and Pelican prayed us out. Thank you gents for the camaraderie, the push, and the opportunity to get out there and get stronger alongside you. I appreciate you guys.

  • Chewdoku – from Russo

    Upper 60s this morning at the Pad, where a Pax of three took to the streets (which were surprisingly busy with traffic).

    Pelican was in his normal Friday position, but we were met with a returning Quarterpipe (sans Halloween alien costume) that was a welcome addition. YHC and Pelican had already started in on political discourse by the time QP joined, so we had to apologize in advance for starting off hot.

    Warmup (all 10x)
    – Sealjacks
    – High knees
    – Arm circles
    – Cherry pickers
    – Grass grabbers
    – Toe touches
    – self love
    – Torso twists

    Thang
    Mosey around Old Mandeville, stopping at corners for what I called the Escalator – 7 exercises, varying rep counts from 7 to 1. Next round, what was 6 reps becomes 7, 5 becomes 6, rinse and repeat to where 7 becomes one.

    If you looked at the screenshot of the Excel schedule I used to compile (the printer was doing printer things so no hard copy) it, you’d see why it’s an escalator. Or, as Pelican noted, “more like a conveyor belt”. Chewy had the best response to my explanation at one point, dead panning “So….Soduku?” So from now on, it will be entitled Chew-doku.

    Once we hit the lake, it was 10 freak nasties, BSSs, and box jumps just to say we did.

    Back at home, COT and all that entails closed us out. Thank you gentlemen for joining, Steve I hope you feel better soon, remember there is the annual Zoo-rich classic tomorrow, and SYITG!

  • Solving the Fitness Function – from Steve

    Long before he was counting cards in the Deck of Death, before he was hosting Cinco de Mayo or Pi Day numeric-themed beatdowns, and way back before we all knew him as the only man who could’ve filled Jose’s sweat bucket more quickly than Jose himself, there was a young Russo who competed at the highest levels of high school academia as… that’s right, a Mathlete. YHC got to hear Russo’s origin story, that rare formative experience that, dare I say, altered something in his brain, changing the trajectory of his life and sending him on his destined path as the greatest mathematical mind of the Northshore F3 Pax. (Ok, Grundy may want to challenge you there, Russo….especially if an award is being handed out.)

    Anyway, that story and others were told as Russo and YHC did a Tabata-style Block Party, 45 seconds on, 15 seconds rest. This was another interesting experiment in time dilation (the first being Chewy’s 8-year anniversary beatdown which, with its three exercises repeated ad nauseam, somehow felt longer than last year’s 12 hour anniversary beatdown). Here, the clock slowed to a crawl for the 45 seconds of work, and then miraculously went into overdrive for the 15 seconds of rest. We did 4-45 second sets of each of the following exercises (with a trip up the stairs between):

    – Curls
    – Squat Thrusters
    – Flutter Kicks (holding block up)
    – Goblet Squats
    – Bent over rows
    – Chest Presses

    COT with Russo praying us out. Thanks Russo for the post and the opportunity to lead!

  • Solving the Fitness Function – from Steve

    Long before he was counting cards in the Deck of Death, before he was hosting Cinco de Mayo or Pi Day numeric-themed beatdowns, and way back before we all knew him as the only man who could’ve filled Jose’s sweat bucket more quickly than Jose himself, there was a young Russo who competed at the highest levels of high school academia as… that’s right, a Mathlete. YHC got to hear Russo’s origin story, that rare formative experience that, dare I say, altered something in his brain, changing the trajectory of his life and sending him on his destined path as the greatest mathematical mind of the Northshore F3 Pax. (Ok, Grundy may want to challenge you there, Russo….especially if an award is being handed out.)

    Anyway, that story and others were told as Russo and YHC did a Tabata-style Block Party, 45 seconds on, 15 seconds rest. This was another interesting experiment in time dilation (the first being Chewy’s 8-year anniversary beatdown which, with its three exercises repeated ad nauseam, somehow felt longer than last year’s 12 hour anniversary beatdown). Here, the clock slowed to a crawl for the 45 seconds of work, and then miraculously went into overdrive for the 15 seconds of rest. We did 4-45 second sets of each of the following exercises (with a trip up the stairs between):

    – Curls
    – Squat Thrusters
    – Flutter Kicks (holding block up)
    – Goblet Squats
    – Bent over rows
    – Chest Presses

    COT with Russo praying us out. Thanks Russo for the post and the opportunity to lead!

  • If Steve writes one, I have to too – from Russo

    Mid 50s, beautiful morning today to hop back on the ‘Pad. Worried sick for two days that Steve had to fly solo at Granny’s, on the off chance he was going to post, I had to also post. He was not the only one YHC has let down recently. The other was Pelican, so of course it was nice being back in a routine with these two fine folks.

    After a little back and forth over who was going to Q (think: Night at the Roxbury “Me? You? You? No, me? Him? Him? Me?) we were off.

    Chatter included movie editing, how to avoid Hot Springs at all costs, eclipses, king cake knives, and big mistakes. Huge.

    Warmup
    All 10x IC:
    – SSHs
    – Arm circles
    – Imperial walkers
    – Self love
    – Toe touches
    – High knees

    Thang

    Mosey down to the tunnel, where it was 11s: merkins in one side, traverse, shoulder tap plank jacks on the other.

    Mosey back and we hit 6:00 on the nose.

    COT, with Count, NOR, Announcements, Prayer.

    Remember tomorrow if you post, do so at the Marsh for some madness.

    SYITG

  • Growing Up with Throwing Stars & Brass Knuckles – from Steve

    YHC was so sure that no one would be posting at the Splashpad this Friday that I had a contingency plan for a solo beatdown, but no actual plan if someone were to show up.

    With Akbar waiting in the parking lot and Pelican coming in soon after, plans to head to the Marsh for a murph were scrapped and it was time to wing it.

    Usual warmorama proceeded by four corners: 5x kraken burpees, 10x lunges, and 15x big boys at each corner.

    This Friday’s topic of conversation was growing up in the late 80’s, those troublemaking friends you had that for some reason had throwing stars and knives and BB guns lying around their house and no parents in sight, and just how much of a leash you should give your kids nowadays so they can still make their mistakes and learn from them. (Poll revealed that despite the unlimited access to everything these days, our particular kids are all somehow more sheltered than we were at that age.)

    Next up, a stop by the Depot, where Step Downs are finally gaining some traction with the Pax (YHC heard Akbar complaining about them Saturday). Mix of the usual, step ups, Bulgarians, step downs, jump overs, calf raises, slow squats, x10-12 IC, punctuated by some freak nasties between sets.

    Head over to the trailhead steps for a set of 11’s – merkins at bottom, Sister Mary’s up top.

    Wrapped up with a quick Mary, COT, and Pelican prayed us out, reminding us to be thankful for the gift of forgiveness. Happy Easter gents.

  • A typical Splash Pad Friday – from Russo

    Return to the 60s for a temp this morning, 62 or thereabouts to be more precise. A return to the dynamic duo after a few weeks of sickness, guest stars, laziness, holidays, other. Great mumble as always, revolving around warranties, insurance, and ESG.

    Warmup (all 10x JC)

    – Toe touches
    – High knees
    – Arm circles
    – Imperial walkers
    – Cherry pickers
    – Torso twists

    Thang
    Mosey down to the lake and back, stopping each block to add on group of 10, eventually getting up to a set of:

    10 merkins
    10 monkey humpers
    10 squats
    10 gas pumps
    10 groiners

    Also included 2 calf raises up each of rip’s steps and a minute of Rocky Balboas (2x), with 10 IC freak nastys, BSSs, and step ups (also 2x) at the sea wall.

    COT, NOR, Announcements, Prayer, and we headed out.

    Quick note: Pelican and I’s church St. Timothy is having a men’s dinner and guest speaker on Thursday, 3/14 if anyone is interested in joining us. I hear that a couple men have already committed, but there will be plenty of room. Tickets are $10 and the meal alone is worth the price of admission.

    SYITG

  • Mystic Krewe of Frizzledrip – from Steve

    If you’re waiting for YHC to explain that title, you’re gonna be waiting a while. And don’t go googling that stuff… seriously, it’s dark web material and your IP address will be added to some government list and that girl from The Ring will crawl out of her well, pop out of your phone, and take you down. (Note to Rudy: this is when we could use the option of using a gif / meme / pic to help out where words can’t do justice. Honestly, I don’t know how Jose 10k writes any backblasts without the gif option).

    Alright, this is another tardy backblast and so there’s not much that I can remember about the splashpad beatdown at this point except that it was good to catch up with Pelican and that the chatter revolved around parades, conspiracy theories (or are they!?!) and, of course, Taylor Swift. Usual warmorama before this Krewe took to the streets for a trip to the tunnel.

    No surprise that there were merkins along the way: 20x at each of the three intersections. Then YHC backpedaled up the ramp while Russo and Pelican did one of the following exercises (swaparoo after each run): plank jacks, lunges, burpees, groiners… something else… Big boys?

    Return trip was similar to the route out – stopping for 20x merkins – though we also added a depot stop for some leg action. Usual mix of Bulgarians, freaks, step ups, and my recent fave, step downs. It was Pelican’s first experience with step downs and they did not disappoint.

    Quick round of Mary, COT, and Russo prayed us out. It’s been great joining the Friday crew the past few weeks, t-claps to these two guys for holding this AO down for so long.