Elkhorn North High School
40 degrees, clear skies, lots of stars. Chilly but perfect.
PAX- Home Alone, Greenhouse, TSwift, Schnitzel, Thor, Vespa, Da Fridge, Sandworm
Q: Roadhouse
I laid in bed around 9:30 PM and grabbed my phone to set the alarm. It was then that I realized the Wolf Den starts at 5:15 am. God dammit. What is this new trend of beat downs starting at 5:15. Are we getting too much sleep? Are we feeling that we need to get up even earlier? Frankly, I think it is horseshit and I won’t stand for it. And with that, I set my alarm for 4:30 AM. Fuck me…
I pulled into the lot right before 5 AM and there was one car. Wow, I guess the novelty of me Qing has finally worn off. It took 3 ½ years but we finally got here. Was it my preblast that turned people off? Are people just tired of me? Was it the 5:15 start? That must be it. It couldn’t be me… I fought back tears as I got out of the car and started some light stretching.
Slowly, PAX members started pulling into the lot and one returned from his pre-run. Thatta boy TSwift! At 5:15, we had nine guys. A small but powerful group. A few of the PAX had aggressive weekends and were not feeling great! My new goal was to get them to throw up. Lets go!
I struggled through the intro. 3 Fs. Five core princies. And with that we started a mosey to the football field. Some of the PAX asked if we had a mission statement or a credo and I informed them they could find those things on our F3 Omaha website. Fuckers…
We got to the field and circled up around the 50 yard line. It was time for some Warm-a-rama.
WARM-A-RAMA:
Silent Side Straddle Hops
Big Ones
Deep Stretch
Imperial Walkers
Howls at the Moon
The howls at the moon felt really good on this dark, cool morning. To thrust my pelvis towards the earth and then follow that with an upward howl into the black morning sky felt primal, sexual, it felt hot man. Some lights started showing up in houses nearby. Our work here was done.
For the pre-thang, we were going to run and do wall work. It started with a lap around the track and then we lined up along the stadium wall for some wall work.
THE PRE-THANG:
Donkey Kicks
Chicken Peckers
Australian Mountain Climbers
Balls to the wall.
After one round, we took another lap and returned to the wall for round two. By the time our 2nd round of balls to the wall were over, we were gassed.
Now it was time for the Thang and we were going to do this one together. We lined up on the sideline of the football field. One sideline would be core. The other would be Merkins. And with a that, we ran!
THE THANG:
We ran from sideline to sideline doing sets of 20 core exercises on the West sideline and sets of 20 merkins on the east sideline. The mumblechatter was great and we moved together in sync.
After about 15 “laps” of this, I changed things up. We moseyed to the North goal line and lined up. And for the next 10 minutes we just ran. From goal line to goal line. Sometimes forward. Sometimes backwards. We just kept running. And running. And running.
Finally, Omaha was called and we moved back to the 50 yard line for some Mary.
MARY:
E2Ks
Freddy Mercurys
Rosalitas
Flutter Kicks
American Hammers
We ended Mary with a starry reflection. The sky was full of stars and I asked the PAX to lay on their back and look up. I asked them to let go of an emotion they didn’t want to carry with them this week and to grab one they wanted to move with.
After our reflection, we were done. We had done it. And we had done it together.
Name-o-rama:
NOR went fairly smooth and ended in a wolf howl for the ages.
Announcements:
F3 Poker Night coming in November
Prayers:
Tassels and his wife
Pit Stop and his family
Schnitzel has a friend struggling with esophageal cancer.
COT:
I was at a conference last week and attended a session called “Having civil conversations in an uncivil workplace.” I was expecting to walk away with some great professional insights and to be better at work. But what happened was, I had a personal lightbulb explode in my mind.
The idea that sparked my mind was the concept of inviting emotions in a challenging conversation. I have a long history of shoving my emotions down or more often telling people not to feel the way they are feeling. And the person I do that to the most is my son Bodhi.
At 5 years old, he is emotional. His reactions are at a 10. And what I often say to him is things like “I cannot believe you are upset right now” or “ you can’t be mad about things like this.” And in this session I realized that I literally could not do anything worse than that. When I question his emotions and not validate how he is feeling, the result is shame or embarrassment or anger for him. I can’t think of anything I would want to do less to my son.
So instead of questioning or shaming how he is feeling, I need to validate and ask questions about why he is feeling the way he is. Now, that is easier said than done right? Because lets be honest, sometimes they get upset over some dumb shit.
I can remember doing this same thing to my ex-wives and I think we know how that worked out.
So moving forward, I am going to try and be better when it comes to people’s emotions and instead of telling them not to feel that way or questioning what the fuck is wrong with them, I am going to let them know its ok to feel how they are and ask how they got there.
If you want to try it to, I think it will help us in all of our relationships.
Think about it.
I love you guys!
Roadhouse, CLB