Monday December 26th Mission Forge.
Balmy 10 degrees with a windchill of -10.
Pax (16)
Ketchup, Superfly, Da Kine, Tea Party, Tight Lip, Scoober, Z-bo, Griswold, Truly, Khaki’s (respect), Wentworth, Litebrite, Tater Tots, Chucky, Escobar, Kickstand.
Compared to the week prior, the last workout of the year at Mission Forge was darn near hot, at -10. A perfect temperature for my VQ. We had a late start to the day, Coffeteria could not start until 7, so we pushed back our start time to 6. As we got closer to our start time, more and more PAX started rolling in from their pre-run and Smurphs, even though it was declared a Smurph free day. Hard men do hard things.
At 6:00 a.m. on the dot, because I was nervously staring at my watch for the prior two minutes, we got going. I made it through explaining where we were, and who were are. I somehow remembered all 5 core principles, the mission and the Motto of F3, while I felt the stares of 15 men, wondering how my VQ would start.
Warm-a-rama started right in front of the Shovel flags.
15 Side Straddle hops IC
15 Tappy Tap IC
10 Big ones IC
After the brief warm up, it was time to get moving. We headed North and East with a final destination of Yogi’s driveway in mind. We had to learn the hard way, why the neighborhood across the street from Mission Forge is called Mission Hills. We ran up and down the three main hills in the neighborhood. At the top of each hill, the PAX where allowed to briefly catch their breath before exercises began.
First hill-
20 Merkins
20 LBC’s
Second Hill-
20 Wekirns
20 Frozen Freddy’s IC
Third Hill
20 Chuck Norris Pushups
20 Big Boys
Then it was a push further into the neighborhood to go say good morning to Yogi. We stopped in his driveway and yard.
20 Monkey Humpers IC
20 Rosalita’s IC
And then some snow angels
This was all caught on video. In the future, we need to work on our form a little bit more. We reversed course, and made a quick stop to say hello to Mrs. Kickstand.
20 Carolina Dry Docks
Then headed back to the Shovel flags
We finished up with a quick round of American Hammers IC
Name-O-rama went smooth until I forget when it is was time to turn the camera on myself.
Announcements-Were were told to check slack…
Lots of VQ’s this week, check the schedule
Griswold is leading Catalyst on Wednesday AM
Prayers-Pit Stop’s M and Family, Men at the Impact Retreat next weekend, the unfortunate over the holidays, Escobar’s Grandma, Devin’s Family and Chowda’s Employee.
COT
First off, it is an absolute honor to lead you high intensity men at the last workout of the year at Mission Forge. August 15th I posted here for the first time, coming around full circle to end the year Qing here. I love the name Mission Forge. A forge is used to shape a useless block of steel into something useful, an implement, a tool or a weapon, and F3 has helped shape me over the last 4 months into a better version of myself. Griswold, when he Q’d at Block party a couple weeks back, said he doesn’t like goals. I have always been at my best when I put a goal in front of me, something to achieve, measure against, but that statement surprised me, and made me start thinking about why, and reflect internally. What I came to realize, is it isn’t when I am chasing a goal when I achieve the most, but when I have a mission. I coached baseball for 18 years, I had some great teams that weren’t that talented and some super talented teams, that weren’t that great. The difference between the two, was always the highest achieving teams bought into the Mission that I laid out. Win, battle, fight, and work hard. A common refrain that I used over those 18 years, was when you would rather die than lose, we will achieve greatness, but until that time, we will always be less than. So I challenge you men to find a mission, one that you would rather die than to fail at. When you see a hill in your way, charge at it, will reckless abandon, don’t let anyone or anything stand in your way. And when you find that mission, and strive to meet the challenges daily, set fear of failure aside, and focus strictly on the one acceptable outcome, winning, you can achieve greatness.
Ended in a Prayer.