In Columbus OH for work. Used the F3 near me for the first time and it was a bust.

I learned the story of Whineman’s Ruck Club AO and how the city of Columbus forced them to use an alternate address and Google pin on the website. A posted up Police Officer knew where the group was.

Good 2+ mile ruck with squats, merkins, backwards ruck to mix it up.

But the craziest thing of all, I see fricken Promo in COT!

We’re staying at the same hotel, same company, crazy.
I’m driving back today though.

Good stuff

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Met up with some Ohio f3 brothers on a beautiful morning just outside of Columbus. Some running with a guaranteed 5k. Lots of squats, merkins, and shoulder work with hill intervals. Mosey back to the flag and one last hill to hit the 5k. Round of Mary as we waited for the ruckers. COT with 3 down range including a familiar face (Punch Out). Good to run into another South Cary brother so far from home! Never know who you’ll run into out in the wild.

MIAGD!

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Here it is. The backblast you’ve all been waiting for. What a day men. Just want to start with some acknowledgemtn of all the HIM that made this day possible. All the guys that stepped up to Q sites, Jigglypuff for taking the SAG Q, and the entire SAG team. Without those pax none of this would have been possible. TY4YL!

Let’s get at it though. What a gorgeous weather day for this 2025 version of The Highland Games. Couldn’t have dialed it up any better. After getting every checked in and assigned their clans for the upcoming festivities we kicked it off promptly at 0545-ish with Squeeze Bag on the bagpipes. THANK YOU Squeeze Bag for coming over and absolutely crushing it on the pipes this morning (check Nextdoor for a glowing review). Announcements made, pledge pledged, and Squeeze Bag played us off on our way.

Over to the Point Break side of Waverly for some warm-ups led by YHC. Pax were high in spirit and full of mumblechatter at this stage of the Games. Once properly warmed, including a full set of SCary Stretches which blew our visiting pax’s collective minds, off we set for the first proper thang at FWD.

Thang 1 – Homegrown took the lead at stop one assigning each clan a task. The tasks were, shotput across the back field, coupon carries down the greenway, dips/irkins/derkins at the bunches by pavilion, and rockwork. Each clan rotated through each station and crushed it. Nobody was taken out by a flying stone, so off to a good start. Let’s continue!

Thang 2 – Lengthy mosey all the way to the home of the premier 0530 Friday AO, Shepherds Watch, for some Ultimate Frisbee led by the pax formerly known as Spayed. The clans paired up and had admittedly a ton of fun. Lot’s of slipping, sliding, spectacular defense, amazing catches, and of course, plenty of burpees for drops. Both teams claimed victory in the end and perhaps the true victor will never be known. In higher spirits than ever off the pax set for the next stop.

Thang 3 – Cross Tryon and head down to the top of the hill before the tunnel. Pax were gathered and WebMD took over. Pax were instructed to storm the tunnel complete with battle yells while running through. This was definitely one of the high points and the effect was truely nailed. Well done Web. Grab the rope and mosey down the greenway a ways for some…. tug of war led by WebMD and rookie of the year candidate Promo! Clans were paired up again and multiple rounds of tug of war were completed with a sprint in between each round. Pairings changed each time and resulted in some riveting mtachups. Indigenous peoples run to the end of the greenway and then regular mosey onto the next stop.

Thang 4 – Amway took the lead at the bottom of the dam hill, where lo and behold pain sticks were awaiting us. Pain stick dora-esque beatdown ensued. Each pax in the clan took a turn carrying the pain stick to the top and completed overhead presses to failure for points (one rep = one point). Bring the pain stick back down and the next pax goes. Pax at the bottom completed a Dora of 100 squats, 200 curls, and 300 rows. At one point Yogi decided to come up with his own method of returning the pain stick and almost broke multiple pax’s ankles, but thankfully nobody was hurt. Score was actually somewhat accurately kept and the winner was determined to be the Blue clan (Let’s go Blue clan!). Next up…. SAG STOP!

SAG team crushed the refreshment pit stop even if Chris R’s music did upset a gentleman who apparently sleeps in his polo shirts. Also, unfortunately (?) no plantains this year. Properly refreshed and refueled off we go for…

Thang 5 – One of the newer AOs launched in SCary is the Saturday morning 3rdF – The Accelerator that runs in conjunction with Loch N Load. The Accelerator is a 4-5ish mile run with a purposeful 3rdF discussion topic selected by the Q that week. Amway gave an overview and clans stuck together to discuss the topic of, “Which of the 3 Fs do you need to focus on most in your life right now?” I can only speak for my clan but the conversation was great, thought provoking, and really encouraging to hear other guys share. TY4YL in launching this great addition to our region Amway!

Thang 6 – Our Accelerator portion ended at Lochmere Village where none other than Fruit Loop was await us with a bucket of golf balls, how very Scottish. Next up was a golf ball relay race. Legs consisted of bear crawl golf ball push, merkins while holding the golf ball between your knees, bunny hopping while holding the golf ball between your hands with your palms down and not using your thumbs, and finally a lunge walk followed by tossing the ball into a bucket (10 penalty burpess if you miss). This was a ton of fun and resulted in many good laughs. But the fun wasn’t over, off we go!

Thang 7 – As we rolled into Ritter Park, the (un)official home of SCary, Kitty Litter took the lead. Clans were paired up and completed caber toss and giant tire flipping. At one point a tiny dog was almost impaled or flattened by cabers until successfully captured by HGTV (who proceeded to tell the lovely lady what all these crazy dudes were doing). Throwing logs and flipping tires is always a great time and this was another highlight for many of the pax. After we were done throwing heavy stuff around Shipyard stepped up and had a surprise for us… We needed the logs at the next stop, and there was only one way to get them there. One log per pax, and lets mosey. But don’t forget the flags!!! This ended up being quite the task and admittedly a lot harder than I thought it would be. TClaps to all the pax for carrying the logs and flags, nice work!

Thang 8 – Around we made our way to the back lot of the adjacent office park for what promised to be an experience with Shipyard at the helm. And boy did he deliver. With the help of CPR construction some pallet sleds had been created and were staged at one end of the parking lot. Our task, use the logs as rollers and pull the sleds to the other side, heaviest pax on top of the sled. At this point a lot of rule bending occured, but the Blue clan absolutely crushed it and completed the task to the letter of the law, and blue everyone out of the water. Well done Blue clan. Apparently according to Shipyard though, everyone lost and had to carry everything back to the start. This was arguably even worse than rolling the sleds down. Done and dusted time to head for home.

Our fearless SAG guide Astro on his trusty segway scooter led us back to Waverly where we were greated by the sweet, sweet sounds of Squeeze Bag serenading us with the bagpipes once again. Simply lovely. And with that it was a wrap.

COT: SCary picnic 4/28, 4-7pm, eating at 5:30p. See Sbarro for the sign-up sheet. SIGN UP!!! Several prayers lifted up.

Thanks again to each and every one of you for coming out this morning and making the effort to be there. Even moreso, thanks to each of your families and friends for putting up with us and the crazy stuff we do, the true heroes. It was an outstanding morning and an honor to your HG Q this year. F3 and this group of guys is incredibly and I’m lucky to have found my way here (shoutout to Astro for the EH almost two years ago now!). Way to crush it this morning!!

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Robust group of HIMs this morning, including 3 from peak city (one of whom identifies as Carpex) to discuss marriage and being a good partner for your wife.

After a masterful preamble talking about the ways we are partner and the 5 love languages, things got controversial. A certain pax refused to weigh-in on ways he is a good partner because “it’s not a partnership, it’s a union”. After some back and forth we determined that it was somewhat semantics and that Union does not start with P, so partnership would be the framework…or else that pax was welcome to leave!

Good discussion ensued with many pax bringing positive contributions. Couple takeaways:
-leverage synergies – our strengths and weaknesses are not our M’s. That’s a good thing.
-show appreciation and gratitude for what your M does for you and your family
-learn your M and how she receives love and show it in that way
-communication is key
-quality time is important
-set yourself up for a good marriage after the kids are gone from the house
-do regular “check-ins” so you can get laid

Appreciate the insights and engagement, gents!

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There was something for everyone this morning at South Cary’s premier Saturday AO. 8 runners ran, 8 boot campers boot camped, and 1 rucker rucked.
The boot campers made it down to the docks for standard warmups which quickly shifted to flying warmups because YHC didn’t want to cadence count any more.
Up to the road for what would be our thang for the day: counting the posts of the red railings that line the road. First section: squats, start at 1 and increment by at 1 each post until we get to the middle. There are 25 posts on that side of the dam, so 325 squats later we started on the other side, this time with overhead presses, to see if the railing was symmetrical. It was. After 325 overhead presses (and multiple amused drivers wondering what we were doing) we made it to the far side of that damn dam and could turn around and enjoy the sunrise over the lake.
Time to go back across. This time we did Paula Abdul’s (2 steps forward one step back) lunge walking 2 posts forward, running back one. After doing that for a bit, changed it up for time: run 2, lunge walk back 1. Made it to the middle bridge where the swans were swanning and the clock was ticking and started moseying back towards the flag, stopping a couple times for rounds of irkins on the railing.
YHC stepped in on the mosey back so we cut across the grass and slowed to a shuffle to wipe it off before a vanilla mary (LBCs, Chris R’s Cobras, Superman’s/Aussie Snow Angels). HAND as the runners returned to the flag.

Announcements: ASS Challenge sign up is locked, but all are encouraged to show up anyway; Highland Games and picnic are on the horizon.

Quote from Mark Twain: “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, but your government only when it deserves it.”
I think about this for government and for the people more immediately in our lives. Support and love them all the time, even when their behavior doesn’t live up to their promise – and take that as an opportunity to guide and nurture them towards more appropriate action.

Good turnout at Chanticleer with a starskey by Petey .

The post 2025-04-05 Q’d by Shipyard appeared first on F3 South Cary.

4 for a 3 mile ec. 9 for main event. Great Eschatological discussion. Where is “the Rapture” in the Bible? What about all those “dead in Christ” prior to being “caught up” (Greek ‘harpazo’: caught up, seize, snatch, take away by force). What happens after being caught up? What about those that don’t get caught up? Do we really even know what will happen? Does it matter? Generally based on 1 Thessalonians Ch.4. Which contextually is generally providing guidance for grief over believers who have died.

Also a discussion on baptism and various view points. Touched a bit on Calvinism and Catholicism.

One near crash by Promo. Some worn out legs by YHC. Wishing Trickle safe travels as he embarks on an adventure of a lifetime today.

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We discussed the responsibility of being the protector of our M and household.

4 PAX shared how they interpret that responsibility and the approaches were varied.

Living in Cary, NC reduces probability of violent crimes in general, but protection spans a lot territory such 5 star crash test protection, fire safety, etc.

YHC shared experience as a combat sports competitor, coach (intramural and private) including tactical training (armed and hand-to-hand)

We all agreed that situational awareness trumps all techniques and training. But also if you do train, your threat response will be more proportional to the situation. In other words, if you only know pew pew, you are prone to shoot when threatened, whereas if you are trained with other methods, you will have non-lethal options. YHC believes it’s good to have those skills, even a little.

Be a hard target – make damn sure to teach the M and 2.0s the same.

I have researched enough bad guys to know what they look for.

Not fear mongering – awareness aye

Very grateful to able to lead this morning and thank you to those that participated

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Thank you to everyone who showed up to my VQ this morning and thank you to the Site Q, Amway for letting me lead the Q.

We started with some warm-up drills before getting into the Thang.

THANG:
A circuit of pull-ups, merkins, lunges and run around the big pickle. 10 sets total, so great job to everyone!

Announcements:
Highland Games 2 weeks from this Sat & SW Cary Picnic 1 week after that

COT:
Prayers for Sbarro’s kids, Pucnhout’s hand injury, Peter, continual wisdom and strength for everyone

The post 2025-04-04 Q’d by YeeHaw appeared first on F3 South Cary.

4 PAX
4 Rucks
3 Sandbags (60)
1 Slamball (20)

20 minutes out down Tryon
Bent over sandbag rows to failure
Back to the flag
10 burpees OYO
10 merkins

YeeHaw virgin ruck!

Pass desanbag bydee left hand side

Announcements: Highland Games / SCary Picnic

COT

Prayer

The post [ao-tues-justruckit] 2025-04-01 Q’d by Punch Out appeared first on F3 South Cary.

16 descended upon the lovely Giles residence in the hills of Regency for a poker night to remember. Vegan and non-Vegan snacks were provided. Beverages of various types were brought in by select Pax.

The game – two tables of 8 pax each. One of them was Tamara’s prized dining room table which was treated with appropriate care. Pax were randomly assigned to a table and a seat. One table seemed to have the more serious poker players, plus a wild card who kept busting them up and putting them on tilt.

Blinds increased very rapidly and steeply to keep things moving, which was both scorned and appreciated.

As the night wore on, the cream rose to the top with most of the names you expected to be there making the final table (except for Kiffin, who went out early despite a re-buy). High drama with many all-in moments. Down to the final 4 of Term, Astro, Augmented and Hermes. Out goes TP at the hands of the host and then down went that same HIM at one of the remaining two players. Not a single heads up hand was played as Astro quickly motioned to call it done and split up the winnings. Augmented with 2x the chips threw his weight around and suggested a $380 vs $100 split, which was rejected. After upping the offer to $360 and $120 the deal was sealed and two Pax went home monetary winners. But really…all who attended won.

Could highlights…
-term coming over to table two with exasperated updates on bad beats at his table
-oofda complaining about a bunch of recyclables that ended up in the trash can.
-laloosh doing laloosh things
-learning that there are both bosswood and boxwood cts in Cary
-Astro busting up Amway on another venue
-Buncha pax staying up hours past their bedtime

Well done, Hermes!

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