And that’s all she wrote for the 3rd annual South Cary CSAUP; The 2024 Highland Games.

First things first, BIG UPS to the allstar SAG crew led by @HGTV. You HIMs made this entire CSAUP as effortless as it could be for the participating pax with the support you provided. The crew spent their time, energy, and even their personal funds making this happen for us. TY4FL. YHC, for one, feels surprisingly fresh after running the 12.5 miles and I am going to attribute that to the support crew.

Also a big round of applause to Poncharello, who travelled all the way from the other side of the county (Wake Forest Region) to play the bagpipes and send us running into the GLOOM. SCary is entirely grateful. After a short speech by our very own Nantan, Pocharello wowed us with his musical piece (star spangled banner) in theme with the Scottish Highlands. With that we picked up the shovel flags and collectively hit the road.

@Kitty Litter and @Jigglypuff led us to the entrance of the Greenway where we were instructed to do some warm ups and light stretching. A nice appetizer to what was to come.

First hiccup of the day when the peloton took a wrong turn and ended up on the wrong trail, which we quickly remedied. On the right path and a mile of jogging, we arrived at #ao-fri-slipperywhenwet.

Thang 1 – Our Qs @Amway and @Spayed had the pax teamed up in 3s and had each team find a throwing rock. One team-member handled shot putting the rock over a swampy field while the second and third team member performed dips in the shelter and bear-crawls in parking lot, respectively. When the shot-putter finished his turn, duties were swapped among team-members. 4 rounds and we were done. Winning team won the prize of having to do 5 less burpees than the 10 the losing teams had to perform. Mosey on to the next site.

Thang 2 – Arriving safely, we were greeted by the @Hallmark and @Water Wings at #ao-wed-pointbreak. We were broken up into several teams and we went team vs team pushing two vehicles up the parking lot. The pax were skeptical of the claim that the vehicles were separated in weight by a mere 10 lbs. This was one heck of an effort pushing those vehicles up a slight incline. Done and dusted, we all picked up the shovel flags and moseyed onto the next site a mile up the road.

Thang 3 – #ao-tue-flirtinwithdisaster was our next destination and the Qs here were @Joe Smith and @Banjo (Carpecker). Pax were divided into 2 and one half went to the muddy field near the Greenway entrance for some stubby log tosses while the other half stayed to do a round of caber toss. These strong man exercises were accompanied with Popcorn Marys. Tough stuff here.

Thang 4 – One of the few climbs in the route to reach our destination at #ao-fri-shepherdswatch. @Astro and @Flintstone divided the pax into 4 teams and YHC was marvelled at the efficiency at which the teams were assigned. Almost like grabbing a ticket at the DMV in the form of @Flintstone assigning each pax a number as soon as we entered the location one by one. Good stuff fellas. Tug-O-Wars was the main course here and the smiles on the faces of the pax made it known that we all had a jolly good time. YHC has a grievance that almost all the rounds were won by the team that was pulling on a slight downhill. Conspiracy theory maybe? Shovel flags in hand, the pax headed to the next site, the longest stretch of 1.6 miles.

Thang 5 – Arriving at #ao-sat-lochnload we were surprised to see flag poles, pallets, cinder blocks, ropes, and @HGTV’s smiling face. This surely meant he had something deviously painful in store for us and indeed he did. 4 teams pushed a pallet with a bunch of cinder blocks. The challenge was to go from flag to flag while pulling these pallets with one teammate on board. At each stop, we had an assigned exercise administered by a SAG crewmember. Tough stuff again.

Like the half-time intermission for any competitive event, we were rewarded with one at this point. A cornucopia of cut up fruit, rice-krispies, pickles, mustard, water, gatorade, etc. awaited us. YHC has another conspiracy theory that the guy who was in charge of the bananas accidentally bought plantains instead. I should probably have put eating those plantains as Thang on its own.

Thang 6 – Refreshed the pax were surprised by the unveiling of 4 heavy and dusty tires and a 12-foot long 4×4. This pole was used to carry those 4 tires all the way to #ao-mon-kryptonite and the pax were expected to chip in and take turns without ever laying the contraption on the ground. Running was kept to a minimum because of the awkwardness and weight of the whole operation.

Thang 7 – @Life Alert and @Texas Ranger awaited us at Java Jive and the makeshift #ao-wed-hulkamania site. We threw kickballs into surprisingly flexible and mobile human basketball hoops while lunges were performed for a make and burpees for a miss. It was deemed a race by the Qs so I don’t know if YHC saw even one properly executed lunge or burpee. Regardless, we can all agree that the human-basketball-hoop was the real MVP of this basketball operation. It wasn’t about the shot, it was all about how well the human-hoop moved to assist the making of the errant shots.

Flags on hand and the tire and pole contraption in our collective hands we were off to our final destination, #ao-mon-kryptonite. These final 1.5 miles were tough sledding, but in the end we all made it back, which YHC was grateful for.

COT: SCARY picnic on the 19th of May, various blood drives for you to be a part of, Respect and Honor week coming up, and the naming of FNGs Tide Pod, and Sunkist. Prayers and Prayers!

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. This is how YHC feels after completing the whole route wearing a 20lb ruck-vest (well, the floating part, not the stinging part). It was a great honor to be a part of this operation and once again I want to point the spotlight to the SAG crew. Even though they did not shed a single bead of sweat they still managed to become the MVPs of the CSAUP. Also great thank yous to all the volunteering Qs who showed us a great time all while challenging us at the same time.

Love to all.

MAKE IT A GREAT DAY!!!

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