15 April 2022 / The Farm / Sarpy County Fair Grounds / Springfield, NE
My first trip to the Southernmost AO in F3 Omaha: The Farm!
I arrived just in time to see the prerunners off and started setting up my coupons, cones, and clipboards. Tony The Tiger was gracious enough to help me set up. And then we did a short mosey to warm up. What a great AO!
It was nearing 5:30AM when I noticed usual Armory patrons Cheap Seats, Mufasa, Fine Print, Ketchup, and Blades of Glory had all made the drive for today’s Site Q Swap! Thanks, guys! (If you are reading this and are a Site Q, then I highly recommend you reach out to your day’s Site Q group and put it on the calendar).
We hit the usual intro – especially, Always outsiiiiiiide! (And, like today, sometimes 5:15) and went right into today’s Burpee Trivia subject matter: National Take a Wild Guess Day!
First Q: Why do they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese a “Royal with Cheese” in France?
Check out the big brain on Flowers: Because of the metric system!
Bobby Hurley’s x 7
Mosey to downtown Springfield
WoR
SSH x 20 IC
Car! Game off! (Pause) Game on!
Tappy Taps x 20 IC
Cherry Pickers x 20 IC
With rush hour traffic in full swing, it was starting to feel more like a scene from “The Program” than an F3 workout. We would finish our mosey to down Main Street Springfield Elementary School to conclude WoR.
Plank
Updog
Down Dog
Pigeon
Trivia #2
Take a wild guess as to the most popular street names in America?
Ketchup was all over this: First, Second, and Third. We then had a brief discussion about how Main Street is the 7th most common street name where, like here, Main street is the common thoroughfare of the town. Then Ketchup asked, “So did we get it right?” Yep!
Bobby Hurley’s x 7
Pre-Thang
The half-mile-car-filled mosey was totally worth arriving at the glorious wall upon which we found ourselves gazing. Time for a fun game called:
Wall Pyramid
5 Australian Mountain Climbers / 10 Chicken Peckers / 15 Donkey Kicks / 20 BTTW / 10 Count
20 BTTW / 15 Donkey Kicks / 10 Chicken Peckers / 5 Australian Mountain Climbers / 10 Count
Trivia #3: Take a wild guess at what are the five most popular board games?
We named about 15 different games, but hit all five: Chess, Checkers, Monopoly, Backgammon, and Scrabble
Bobby Hurley’s x 7
Mosey back down to the Shovel Flags for the Thang:
Three-Man Grinder:
One Pax started AMRAP of the following:
AIR SQUATS
ALTERNATING LUNGES
BIG BOY SIT UPS
MONKEY HUMPERS
SUMO SQUATS
AMERICAN HAMMERS
BONNIE BLAIRS
JUMP SQUATS
BURPEES
While the other PAX started to murder bunny from one side to the other and relived the last PAX who was doing the following AMRAP exercises:
MERKINS
ALTERNATING SHOULDER TAPS
LBCs
CAROLINA DRY DOCKS
LITTLE BABY DIPS
GAS PUMPERS
MAKTHAR NJAIYES
ALTERNATING SHOULDER TAPS
ALARM CLOCKS
Trivia #4: Take a wild guess at the forbidden food of Holy Week? Goose guessed EGGS – correct!
Bobby Hurleys x 7
6MOM
Beast Mode 30 Seconds / Alternating Should Taps x 20 IC / Plank 30 seconds / Gator Spears x 20 IC / Chilcut 30 seconds / Gator Tails x 20 IC
Countarama: 20
Trivia #5: Take a wild guess at which activity purportedly relives headaches for the entire year year when performed on Good Friday?
The responses were hilarious, but the answer eluded us. The correct answer is “getting a haircut”
Nameorama (still laughter from the wild guesses)
Tony the Tiger, Blades of Glory, Echo, Fine Print, Mufasa, Swiper, Black Tuesday, Sasquash, Ketchup, Speed Square, Feeny, Shrute, Duracell, Flowers, Trench, Cheap Seats, Hu Hot, Goose, Pain Killer and Gator
COT: Take a Wild Guess at what happened to my M’s car…
I told the story about how my M’s car died because it went too long without an oil change after the perfect combination of miscommunications, a high mileage vehicle, and a broken oil light indicator caused the apple cart in the Gator household to be up ended. But first, T-Claps to Blades of Glory for lending me his car while we wait for a our new vehicle to arrive.
Back to the story: When I realized that my M and I were about to have a hard conversation, I found myself unconsciously wanting to avoid it. This reminded me of a passage in Dr. John Gottman’s book “Seven Principles for Making a Marriage Work” – namely, the part where talks about the biological difference between men and women that arises in marital conlfict. It turns out when men have marital conflict, they often have their fight or flight reflexes engage and increase blood pressure, heart rate, etc. And, unlike women, men take much longer to calm down. While men are “flooded” (as Gottman puts it), we don’t hear what is being said and our thinking is not rational. Over time, this process conditions men to avoid hard conversations. I realized that the stress of having to have a hard conversation about the loss of the family truckster and the question of what to do next was making me want to avoid calling my M. But I kept calm, made the call, and – by the end of the week – actually felt better because I was proud of how well my M and I navigated this unexpected and challenging situation.
So, remember we have a unique biological make up as men. So, when you find yourself avoiding (or struggling in) a hard conversation with your M. Take a minute to be calm. Take a deep breath. Take another deep breath. And I’ll take a wild guess that it goes better once you do.
With Gratitude,
Gator