Date: October 26, 2023

Weather: Clear, 52 degrees, light breeze – perfect running weather!

PAX (23): Graffiti, Simone, Cornhole, Tammy, Eeyore, Maneater, Chinese Downhill, Gilligan, Scooby Doo, Tesla, Refi, Norwood, Explosion, I-Beam, Bruce Lee, Quick Draw, Nancy, Johnny Utah (War Baby), Footloose, Haz Mat (War Daddy), Valentine, Demo, Wojo (QIC)

How do you make a running workout fun and unique…or at least unique from the previous weeks? That’s where I started this week – looking for some uniqueness to bring to the always strong group of Stampeders, while also keeping us relatively together and abiding by the F3 Credo. No one was getting left behind today!

It looked to be a relatively small group today until the floodgates opened up and 5:28, including Gilligan’s Clown Car from the ’08 zip code. Welcome back to Chinese Downhill!

At 5:31, I welcomed everyone, introduced myself as this morning’s Q, named the 3 Fs and recited the F3 Mission Statement and disclaimer. We’re to listen to our body and modify as needed. I also disclosed that today’s effort might be a little unique that hopefully would not result in a trainwreck! After that, we got to work!

  • Warm 0 Rama
  • Side Straddle Hop X 1o IC
  • Imperial Walker X 10 IC
  • Don Quixote X 10 IC (slow, Abe Vigoda style)
  • String Rippers X 10 IC
  • Side Lunges (slowly 4 each side)
  • Sky Reachers

Warm-up mosey from the Lindley Park bball court across W. Market and down Starmount to the Knollwood intersection (just over 1/2 mile and about 5 minutes) – perfect warm up distance and time!

THANG!

In my pre-blast, I referenced Indiana Jones, Up and Overs and the game of Tag – and that’s what we did, with the goal of pushing pace and keeping our collective heart rates elevated! Here’s how that went.

Pax divided up into three groups based on their perceived fasthole-ness –> fast, medium or slow. The Pax then stayed in those groups for the Indiana Jones, which is just another way to say Indian Run. The difference today is that these three running groups were instructed to push the pace as we went Up and Over a bunch of hills. Once we got to the end-ex of each section, we picked up the six. Here were the sections:

  • Knollwood/Starmount up Knollwood to Madison, down to Wedgedale (pick up 6, recover)
  • Madison/Wedgedale up Madison to Holden, back down to Madison/Wedgedale (pick up 6, recover)
  • Madison/Wedgedale up, down, and up Madison to W. Avondale (pick up 6, recover)

Recover mosey OYO down W. Avondale to Edgewater Dr. (Yep, the Pax knew where we were going)

5K race pace run down Edgewater to Homewood Ave, for the promised game of Tag.

For this next section, I asked for 1 volunteer from each of the Indiana Jones groups to be the designated taggers. They went to the top of the first Homewood Hill (both the streetlight AND the house on the left were dark, which added to the fun) and established the ‘tag zone’. I know Tammy & Explosion were two the three taggers – can’t remember the other one (Cobains!).

One the taggers were in place, the rest of us raced up and over the hill,  tried to avoid a tag, and proceeded down to Madison Ave. If you were tagged, you owed 5 burpees at the top of the hill. Exceptional evasive maneuvers occurred at the top of the hill, but A LOT of us still did burpees.

Once we all made it to Madison, three more volunteers were chosen from who was just tagged to go to the top of the next Homewood Hill. Refi and Cornhole (I think) were two of the taggers. The group ran up and over the next hill, and did 5 merkins if tagged. Refi extended the tag zone all the way to Nancy’s house and got all of us who thought we made it through. Once we all made it to Nancy’s house/W. Market Street, we all did 10 merkins.

Recover mosey down Market Street to Lindley Park entrance and down the entrance road back to the basketball court/shovel flag.

Mary

  • American Hammer X 1 IC

Fin!

Distance Covered: 3.4 miles (average) – some got more, some a little less.

Moleskin & Announcements

  • TClaps to Nancy and Tesla for showing up early for EC run. I know Graffiti runs in from his home and Norwood parks along Starmount, near Holden to get a warm up run in as well. If I missed identifying your EC run, TClaps to you as well!
  • Welcome back to Greensboro, Chinese Downhill. Always good to have you with us. I know you, Gilligan and your dad will have a meaningful weekend together.
  • Eeyore – thanks for coming back to the Stampede. Keep coming out, plug into some other workouts and you be feeling the full force of the F3 magnet.
  • Heard at the workout today that Quick Draw had accepted a new job out of state and will be leaving Greensboro in the near future. Didn’t get all the details on the timing, but we will miss you, QD. Congratulations on your new gig.
  • Keep guys on the IR and who are dealing with stuff in your thoughts and prayers. They need it and they need us to be along side them! No OYO in F3!
  • Two announcements of note and BOTH are scheduled for Saturday morning, November 4:
    • F3 Greensboro has accepted an invitation to be in the NCA&T Homecoming Parade. All Pax are invited to join and be in the parade. There is a Google Sheet in the Natville Slack channel to sign up or you can let me know and I’ll sign you up. Meet at the Post Office on Murrow Blvd at 7 am to get organized and ready. WEAR YOUR F3 GREENSBORO GEAR.
    • F3 Burlington celebrates their 8th anniversary that Saturday. As you know, the BTown guys came over on both Wednesday and Saturday of last week to support our 9 year anny. It woudl be great to have some Natville guys go over and support them.

Thanks for the opportunity to Q this morning and for your great effort!

– Wojo