Celebrating 56 Years Young

Date: 2026-03-13 AO: bomber Q: Vector PAX: Pep, Firefox, Tim the Toolman, Squatter, Sherlock, Title Max FNGs: None COUNT: 7 A tradition unlike any other . . . no, not the Masters. A Vector Birthday Q. This was the 9th one, which is crazy. I can’t seem to get rid of you HIMs.
For the theme, after some careful, thoughtful feedback (?criticism) from Michelin Man about branching out my playlists to, I don’t know< decades other than the 1980s, I opted to go with a playlist so new, you're afraid to park it in a downtown Nashville parking garage for fear of that first door dent. Despite what Natural Ice might say . . .
CONDITIONS: Cool (like the playlist)
WARMUP: For the 9th year in a row, SSH x my new age. (Some looks on the PAX faces of "Damn, why's he gotta be so old." LBAC x 11 (i.e. 5+6), Overhead Presses x 11, Seal Claps (complete with the porcelain bark c/o Title Max) x 11, RLBAC x 11, WMH and GM OHO, and Imperial Walkers x 11
THE THANG: After a side mosey to pay our respects to the now demolished McCabe playground (RIP pull up bars), back to the hill for
#1 5+6s (aka 11s) — squats at bottom; merkins at top
Then mosey to upper lot for #2 6 stations – do 56 reps of exercises (Mountain Climbers, Iron Mikes, BB sit-ups, Star Jumps, Shoulder Taps, and as a party gift, an exercise of your choice). Then 5 burpees just 'cause.
Mosey to startex for #3 DIDs (28 dips, 14 incline merkins, 14 decline merkins) x 2
Mary with Flutter Kicks, Hello Dollys, Leg Raises, and ending with 56 LBCs
ANNOUNCEMENTS: – Murder Mystery Party tomorrow – Holy Smokers — check Slack
COT: – Prayers for Title Max’s little girl, my kids traveling abroad, and all of the PAX coming and going for Spring Break – Thankful for all of the PAX for making me better each time I am out. Apologies Tim the Toolman for the profanity in the songs – you know the kids these days and their cursing.
PLAYLIST: – Private – The Neigbourhood – Dracula – Tame Impala – As Alive As You Need Me to Be – NIN – Glide – Neiked and Portugal, the Man – Basic Being Basic – Djo – Sex, Drugs, Etc. – Beach Weather – Opalite – Taylor Swift – Ready, Steady, Go! – Harry Styles – Your Direction – Goose – Distorted Light Beam – Bastille – Lost in Space – Foster the People – mangetout – Wet Leg

Make Sandbags Great Again

Date: 2026-03-11 AO: titan Q: Natural Ice PAX: Pep, Tim the Toolman, Sherlock, Title Max, Papa Bear, Natural Ice, Radish FNGs: None COUNT: 7 CONDITIONS: Soggy but not too soggy
WARMUP: SSH for my man Pep we did 30, because I am mean. Some Stretching some Hill Billies, Some Merkins
THE THANG: Make Sandbags Great Again! Pax formed a circle and performed Merkins until the timer ran out. The timer consisted of each member of the Pax performing 5 sandbag burpees. Once all of the burpees had been paid we ran a little loop.
Rinse and Repeat, but Pax could swap out the 5 sandbag burpees with 10 goblet squats. The resting exercises also rotated with varies forms of mery as well as incline merkins.
MOLESKINE: Do Hard Things!
ANNOUNCEMENTS: So many! The Merchant Murder Mystery this saturday!
COT: Praying for Title Maxs family and his new born daughter to have a speedy and safe recovery!
PLAYLIST: David Bowies hits in his various forms

7th Manniversary of Toothless 🦷

Date: 2026-03-05 AO: greenmachine Q: Toothless PAX: Focker, Esposa, Pep, Sherlock, Grape, Black Lung, Cal Worthington, Betty Ford, Topanga FNGs: None COUNT: 10 CONDITIONS: Clear sunrise, breezy, not too warm, felt like 30A. Perfection.
WARMUP: – 49 x SSH – 7 x Good mornings – 7 x Scorpions
THE THANG:
7 Rounds of Tabata – 45s on, 15 off – High knees, squats, burpees, butt kickers, prisoner squats, peter parkers, iron mikes
Six-Seven’s – Perform 6 and 7 reps of two exercises respectively at every 10 yard line – Broad jump, hand release merkins for 6, WW2’s for 7
Repeat 7 Rounds of Tabata (mod burpees to low plank)
Stairway to 7 – Stair runs up & down all the way to the end – After each, do an increasing count of burpees, add 1 per round
MOLESKINE: YHC was gassed by this one – I pulled the plug a little early on the stairway to 7. We only got through 5 rounds when we probably could have made 7, but as they say if you can’t do it don’t Q it! Folks were big fans of year 8 Toothless who threatened penalties for exercise infractions or dropping during the low plank of tabata. Perhaps a precursor of what is to come :smiling_imp: Finished up by draining the thermos of some excellent anaerobic natural processed coffee. :coffee:
ANNOUNCEMENTS: – Holy smokers soon – Merkin Madness – Many other good things in the Slack post!
COT: – Praise and prayers around those battling leukemia – Prayers for those taking on a 50k this Saturday! For weather and injury free endurance! – YHC shared a learning of this last year, that it’s the little habits that can make you or break you. Don’t shy away from the hard but right choice in the small things because those compounding choices build momentum for the big things.
PLAYLIST: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5Q4PxR9KwkV62jZ86GZ9iI?si=b48993d308b5458b – The PAX loved this one – in reality it wasn’t close to all 7 minute songs but they were picking up what I was putting down with the 70’s rock ballads!
As always, it was an honor to lead men! Looking forward to the next 7 years with you!
— Toothless :tooth: , start date March 8th, 2019

Fight like hell and slay your demons

Date: 2026-02-25 AO: titan Q: SalPal PAX: Pep, Squatter, CubCadet, Black Lung, Stumbles, Spinal Tap, caprate, Papa Bear, Sherlock, swamper FNGs: None COUNT: 11 CONDITIONS: Weirdly warm for my Rocky impersonation.
WARMUP: 11s, Pullups and Weighted Squats
THE THANG: Recreation of the Myth of Sisyphus: Bear Crawl + Coupon Drag, Hill Runs with HR Merkins and Lt. Dans. Plank circuit and 10 burpee buyout.
MOLESKINE: Music was brutal and repetitive. Great for getting locked in.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Grow School, Merkin Madness, Murder Mystery, White’s Creek AO, Check Slack
COT: Changes at work with project, intentions unspoken.
PLAYLIST: Hades + Hades II + Doom (2016) soundtrack

Olympics

Date: 2026-02-13 AO: greenmachine Q: Focker PAX: Pep, Shania, Black Lung, Betty Ford, Cowboy, Esposa, moneyshot, Sherlock, Purple Tiger, Sardine FNGs: None COUNT: 11 CONDITIONS: crisp with closing sunrise
WARMUP: various stretchy stretches
THE THANG: Celebration of Olympics! EVENT 1 – bobsled 20,40,20,100: Bear Crawl down 10 Merkins Crab Walk back 10 jump squats increase by 10 everytime EVENT 2 – Hockey Start on goal line. Sprint to 20 yd → 5 hand release merkins Backpedal to goal line → 5 lunges Sprint to 40 yd → 10 hand releases Back → 10 lunges Sprint to 60 yd → 15 hand releases Back → 15 lunges EVENT 3 – BIATHLON COMBO Broad jump across field 1 minute wall hold 20 bird dogs each side 20 heel lifts Repeat continuously for time.
MOLESKINE: Pep complaining about obvious truth espoused by Esposa
ANNOUNCEMENTS: nothing special except Slack!
COT: Put away your cynicism and enjoy the Olympics. A time to let sports overcome differences and show America is still the best country around (except when it comes to VO2Max, Norway has us on that)
PLAYLIST: Rocky

3 minutes is a long time. Trust me

Date: 2026-02-05 AO: greenmachine Q: Shy Guy PAX: Pep, Shania, Betty Ford, Topanga, Sherlock, Black Lung FNGs: None COUNT: 7 CONDITIONS: A brisk 21 degrees
WARMUP: SSH Tempo Squats Tempo Merkins Mosey
THE THANG: 3×3 Perform mode of transportation to the 15 yard line and back until 3 minute timer goes off. Pace is about 90% capacity, Followed by isometric core for 3 minutes.
Exercises: Burpee broad jumps Recover: plank Bear crawl Recover: side plank Sprint/backwards run Recover: side plank Shuffle Recover: 6 inches
MOLESKINE: Pep covered my 30 seconds of tardiness and started us off with his favorite exercise: Side Straddle Hops The idea for the workout was originally to be a Norwegian 4×4, a VO2 max workout, but changed last minute to accommodate the chosen exercises. Nobody wants to burpee broad jump for 4 minutes.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Slack COT: Brandolini’s law: the energy required to refute misinformation is an order of magnitude greater than the energy required to create it. I applied this to other parts of our life. Cheating on your diet for a couple days seems like it takes 2 weeks of working out to recover from. The repercussions of anger are hard to mend even if you just lose your temper temporarily. Succumbing to temptation is easy but takes divine intervention to remove sin from your life.

DELEGATE

Date: 2026-02-09 AO: westeros Q: Michelin Man , Pep, Tim the Toolman, Sherlock, Natural Ice, Grape, Dirty Bird, Squatter PAX: Pep, Tim the Toolman, Sherlock, Natural Ice, Grape, Dirty Bird, Squatter, Michelin Man, Mud Flap FNGs: None COUNT: 9 CONDITIONS: Not Cold
WARMUP:
D – Downward Dog E – Everybody Run L – Lateral Leg Raise (Jane Fonda) E – Everybody Run G – Good Morning A – Alabama Prom Date T – Toy Solider E – Everybody Run
THE THANG:
YHC needed to line up some Qs but has not had time. So, we did a little delegation. Each Pax took 5 minutes to mini-Q, on the fly, with no prep. They did great!
Highlights: Natural Ice – blockee sets Squatter – thruster sets Tim the Toolman – Sevens Pep – Long mosey (smart to stretch out at this point) Grape – Acronym’d BAD BUNNY on the fly! Sherlock – solid block circuits (curls, OHP, rows). No gimmicks Dirty Bird – second workout. Great Spiderman call! @MudFlap – brought us home with quality work in a UNC shirt (:eyes: Vector).
The first 5 hard committed, and got a combined figure skating score of 29. The last 3 did not hard commit and ended with a combined score of 13. Tough loss by the flacid commits.
Music brought to you by my trip to the Grammy Awards. Other topics of conversation included Epstein files, bitcoin’s collapse, Lindsey Von’s injury, Bad Bunny singing in Spanish, and commercials from the Big Game (TM). Very little actual sportsball talk.
MOLESKINE:
2 Takeaways: 1. Delegation – F3 = Freed to Lead. You can all Q at any time, and with quality. Thanks to those who stepped out to Q for the next month. YHC can step back. 2. Culture Making – F3 = Community. All these big events (the Grammys, Super Bowl, Halftime Show, Grape’s politics, etc.) don’t yield a monoculture any more. So we now make culture locally in small groups.
COT: WEIGHTsteros Forever

Fools with coupons

Date: 2026-02-02 AO: westeros Q: Pep PAX: Tim the Toolman, DintyMoore, Vector, Black Lung, Sherlock FNGs: None COUNT: 6 CONDITIONS: 30 degrees no wind
WARMUP: Requisite ssh Imperial walkers Hillbillies
THE THANG: Dora Timer: farmers carry to crossing sign 100: curls with coupon 200: squat thrust with coupon 300: American hammers with coupon
Mosey to playground through field to hill 7’s at hill: hand release mricans + squats
Finish at starts with 10 burpees ( as decreed by vector)
Playlist: A+ provided by vector – theme was fools
ANNOUNCEMENTS: – night moves on Tuesday night
COT: – prayers for black lungs cat – kids concerned about losing pet – Vector’s mil. Moving her to Nashville after mini stroke – Dinty more : electricity and his anger about nes

Cold but not as cold as next week

Date: 2026-01-22 AO: greenmachine Q: Pep PAX: Squatter, Cowboy, Betty Ford, Esposa, Shania, Black Lung, Focker, Sherlock, Yalp FNGs: 1 Yalp COUNT: 10 CONDITIONS: Cold but not cold like next week
PLAYLIST: F- : no playlist.
WARMUP: – imperial walker – Good morning – Willie mays Hayes – Hillbillies
THE THANG: Travel around sideline of field Pax moving in a line, last man up runs to the front (Indian run) Movements – mosey – Lunges – Bear crawl – Bernie – Sideways – Duck walk
ANNOUNCEMENTS: – leanpax : “you’ll feel better in the morning to reject short term gratification”
COT: – yalp mom in stage three cancer

Last man standing!!!

Date: 2026-01-21 AO: titan Q: Choo Choo PAX: Spinal Tap, Sherlock, Tim the Toolman, Hipster, Stumbles, Natural Ice, Drop Trow, Pep, Vector, bluemule FNGs: None COUNT: 11 WARMUP: some warmup with 5 core principles
THE THANG: Thang: we did 2 rounds of each Partner up. Keep pushing till one of you give up -> easy mosey -> switch partners HiFi merkins Curls American Hammers OH Press American hammers Swings
MOLESKINE: Its better to be a hole than a sink hole. A hole is something that you can see on the surface, you would know how wide, deep it is. But a sinkhole looks all good on the surface, it keeps corroding within then one fine day collapses, taking everything down with it.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: check out after-hours leanpax
TCLAPS to Tim the Toolman for being a HIM and getting blocks on demand.