How Long….(Painhurst)

Eight Pax, took the Daily Red Pill (DRP) this morning and got better.

The Pax: Chitwood, Xbox, Poacher, Rifleman, Napalm, T-Bone, and Colt  (Q: Squirrel)

The Scene: 67 degrees, with 97% humidity under a Waning Crescent moon.  Wonderful morning to be out in the Gloom

Warmup:

• Good Mornings x10
• Abe Vigodas x10
• Cotton Pickers x10
• Wrist Mobility
• 5 to 1 Motivators

Thang: Mosey to the tennis courts

• Lunge walk to far court
• 40              Merkins
• Lunge walk
• 20              Merkins
• Lunge walk
• 10              Merkins

 

• Squats to Moby

• 40 Sec       Static Beast 

• Squats to Moby

• 40 Sec       Static Beast – with a T-Bone instruction session to ensure correct form we got to it
• Squats to Moby!

• 30 Sec ea. Static Beast + lift right foot

• Squats to ….. not Moby! 20 IC (3 down, 1 up)

 

• 40     Merkins
• 1 min         Monkey Humpers
• 20     Merkins
• 1 min         Donkey kicks IC
• 10     Merkins
• 1 min         Fire Hydrant IC

 

Line up facing across the courts…. Beast walk one court width.  Then backwards.

 

Mosey to the Playground and break into 3 groups

• 2 min                  Group 1 Hang
• 2 min                  Group 2 Freddy Mercury’s IC
• 1 min                  Group 3 LBC’s IC

We kicked it to the curbs for 3 sets of 10  slant “board” squats

 

Prayer requests:

1. Prayers for the BRR teams/runners over the course of the next two days and their safe return to the Sandhills.
2. Prayers for Napalms brother-in-law as he recovers from a serious carotid dissection.  Still in the hospital but showing signs of progress. 
3. Praises for Poachers former colleague whose retiring after 38 years of service in the Army.  38 Years!!!

Announcements:

1.  Rafiki is asking the men of F3 Sandhills to help in the Cournament Sponsorhip Project.  So far he has received contributions from F3 Pax totaling $260, with a goal of $500.  Our funding campaign will come to a close on Friday, September 29.
2. Wednesday’s at Pinehurst United Methodist Church (Airport Rd) – Every Man A Warrior had sixteen men last week. If you are interested in focusing on your relationship with God there’s still time to join the group. Coffee and fellowship 5:50 a.m. Large group into 6:00 a.m. Small group lesson time runs from 6:05 to 7:30 a.m
3. 16 September – Trash pickup.  Join the team at 8:45am at the Ace Hardware/Roast parking lot
4. 07 October – Samaritan Colony fund raising event at the Malcolm Blue Farm  

    Xbox led us out in prayer

 

MOLESKINE:  TOGETHER…. 

A few miles did it, not even that.  There I was (months ago) at PFT, a ‘standard’ Monday workout and we were on the fourth of six 200-meter reps.  Rounding the bend I was getting ready to straighten up and push for home, when something popped.  It felt as though someone had got to the back of my calf with a pair of pliers. I faltered, hopped, and tried to get back into some kind of a stride but found I couldn’t. It hurt too much.  I tried desperately to sound cheerful: “Not a biggie – be all right in a moment.  I maintained the slightest hope that perhaps I could run this off, and made an attempt at a jog to the finish, but the truth – and the pain – was swift and conclusive.  Something had happened.  I was injured.

Nothing about this is all that serious. I’m not a professional athlete. No money was lost, no career damaged, no sponsorship deal affected. Nor is the injury terribly bad. It will heal and I will run again and may one day even be a better runner for having had this experience.  I will come back slower.  I do not expect or deserve sympathy. But I do want to talk about what being an injured runner (rucker, work-out-er) is like, at least for me, and I imagine others.

I’m committed to staying healthy, getting and remaining in shape, having relationships built around all of that, it has defined me to a point.  I was all in on some F3!  I didn’t necessarily mean for it to happen, but as I worked out, ran more and got better it gave me a lift.  All of which is fine when I was doing well, but take the run or workout away suddenly and I…

 Found 

Myself…

Adrift.

Unable to get out and workout, the social network that gave me so much support just faded.  And there were the constant reminders of the things I couldn’t do.  I didn’t want to look on Slack, but I did, and the loneliness and the frustration got worse.  

Maybe for you it’s not an injury, maybe you had a period you were walking through some tough sh*t with your 2.0.  A rough patch with your M.  Mammon is unfulfilling or just hectic as hell.  The list goes on.  

So you didn’t show up to post at a workout for a while so you can make sense of the other matters in your life.

Did anyone reach out to check on you?  Morale Call?

                                                                       

How long do I have to keep showing up before people miss me when I don’t post for a while?  How many weeks, months, years do I have to invest before I am invited to dinner or included in a other-than-work conversation? What’s the magic number of posts per year before you are comfortable enough to introduce me to your M?  How often does someone need to be seen in the Gloom before he’s invited to church with you?  Or to grab a beer?

Outside of five minutes before or five minutes after a workout do you talk to the other Pax?   Can you actually call them and speak to what’s going on in their world?  What their kids are up to?  How their work is going?  Some of you may have seen something an old teammate of mine posted on LinkedIn.  Of the people mentioned in the post I personally knew three of them.  3 men I knew committed suicide in a week.   ENOUGH, check on your STRONG friends.  https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tom-satterly-85088b29_enough-check-on-your-stong-frien[…]59157884928-eFXv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Since I posted that news I received exactly ONE call.  F3 Sandhills was a group of men that surrounded me with love when my life was chaotic after my son passed.  You men held me in those dark days.   Now…well, now I get a call if someone needs something.

We speak of a brotherhood we gain in the Gloom, doing hard things together.

                                                                                                                                                                                   

We talk about trusting other men and knowing one another so well we can look at one another or hear each other speak and know something is off.  

What do we do when we see someone’s having a rough go?  Just walk away?  Or can I trust that someone will pull me aside and ask me what the problem is and demand an answer?

Do we have that?  ….Really?

So I ask you again, how long does a Pax have to keep showing up before someone checks in on them if he hasn’t shown up to a workout or an F2 event in a while?

There are men who need F3 for either the Fitness, the Fellowship, or the Faith (or all three).  Call a Kotter and invite him back into the Gloom, out for a beer or coffee, maybe lunch.  Maybe, just maybe, it’s meeting at a park, on a bench, listening to another man’s troubles…

It is time to Accelerate. 

It begins with me.

It begins with you. 

It begins with us – together.

Not apart.

 

Aye!