3rd time the charm

Preamble:

This beatdown has been long due. The Gladiator Qsheet is usually filled well in advance and it’s hard to secure a spot. I originally planned this beatdown to be run a couple month back, but… I didn’t wake up for my own Q. The second try was a few weeks later, but it was expected to rain so I switched to a rain-themed beatdown instead. I was very pleased that everything seemed to align this time – no rain and I woke up in time. Hurray.

Warm-O-Rama:

15 strong men gathered in a circle. No FNGs. Disclaimer was given and mosey initiated. Run through some parking lots, including Bernie, and circle up under the tennis courts.

Weed Pickers, Wind mills, Hillbillies, World’s Greatest Stretch and Moroccan Night Clubs.

The Thang:

I asked the PAX to hold squat position while I explained the Thang. Count us off by 1-2-3, 1-2-3… to split everyone to 3 groups. Each group got a colored highlighter and a Cone.

Blue group started near the coupon pile. Green group in the pavilion and Orange group on the edge of the soccer field. The Cones stayed put. The highlighter continued with the group.

Each group goes to its starting position and chooses one exercise out of the 10 printed on the cone. Highlight the exercise and do it – always 10 reps. Then mosey to the next cone. Now there would already be one exercises highlighted by the previous group. Highlight another one and do BOTH (again, 10 reps each). This cumulative part was not well articulated by YHC but all groups understood by the 2nd or 3rd round. Basically, each time a group rotated to the next cone they do all the highlighted exercises plus one more.

Stop when we run out of time, or if all 10 exercises were done on all cones. At least 2 groups made it through all 10 exercises on one cone, but then we run out of time.

The exercises featured on each cone, approximately by the order they were highlighted:

Coupon Cone: Curls, Overhead Press, Burpees, Mike Tysons, Copper Head Squats, Flatter Kicks, Merkins, LBCs, Skull Crushers, LBCs X2 (meaning, 20 reps). Note: looking at the markers, I think something went wrong in this station. Copper Head Squats were highlighted twice and the last 2 exercises were not marked at all.

Pavilion Cone: Box Jumps, Derkins, Big Boy, Freddie Mercuries, T-Bombs, Dips, Peter Parkers (single), Step Ups (single), Bulgarian Split Squats, Dirty Handshakes

Field Cone: Knee Tucks, Mountain Climbers, No Surrenders, Hand Release Merkins, Pickle Pounders, Bonnie Blairs, American Hammers, Diamond Merkins, Makhtar N’Diayes (single), Turkish Get-ups

COT:

Quad (8/11-8/12) and Darth Visor (8/26) CSAUPs upcoming.

Naked-Man Moleskin:

The purpose of asking groups to highlight selected exercises introduced some chaos to the pain, as even as the Q I couldn’t know which exercises will be highlighted on the next station. Dredd (co-founder of F3) explains that F3 gets us used to pain and chaos via consistent exposure and I found this to be an important life lesson. Things don’t always go how we planned and frustration can be expected, but isn’t very productive. Better to be able to keep calm, take it as it is and adjust on the spot. I saw it when our Friday plans did not go as expected and my family needed me to take control and choose how to proceed. There are many strong life lessons to be learned in F3. #MoreThanAWorkout.