Grantland (Rotary Park) – F3 Black Swamp

Backblast: May 8th, 2024

AO: Grantland – Rotary Park – Perrysburg, OH

PAX:
Photon – Q
Capitol
Irish Hoss
Lego
Lonzo
Mile High
Nitrous
Peach
Phat Thor

Workout: The Garden of Eden

FNG’s: N/A

Mission and Principles:
F3: Fitness, Fellowship, Faith
Mission: To plant, grow and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership.
The core principles of F3 are that it is always:
1. Free of charge
2. Open to all men
3. Held outdoors, rain or shine, heat or cold
4. Led by men who participate in the workout in a rotating fashion, with no training or certification necessary. You versus you. Modify or stop an exercise if you need to. The most important thing is that nobody gets hurt.
5. Ends with a Circle of Trust
Credo: Leave no man behind but leave no man where you find him

Background:
This one was 100% inspired by my daughter whom shall not be named on the interwebs. Her birthday is coming up and I wanted to celebrate her and the way that she inspires me with a workout fit for an imaginative toddler. Turns out the girl loves bugs, so YHC cobbled together a beatdown that followed a young girl’s adventure through her garden.

Warm-up:

SSH – 20 (2 is 1) IC
Windmills – 9 IC

The “Thang”:

The single-file line of PAX started with a rifle carry from the flag to the top of the hill beside the pickleball courts to represent a colony of ants carrying its’ spoils back to the anthill. (YHC carried a 12lb speaker bungeed to a 20lb ruck plate to ensure bug-themed tunes were present throughout the duration). Upon reaching the ant-hill, PAX performed m’Ant-Makers until the ant-hill was attacked by a group of jumping spiders.

As the first notes of No Doubt’s “Spiderwebs” drifted through the air, PAX began a 3min Tabata of jumping spiders (explosive pushups). Six total rounds of AMRAP 20s on, 10s rest.

Once the spiders had been sapped all of their energy, the ANTS set out to find a new home, rifle carrying towards the hill East of the YMCA to DMB’s “Ant’s Marching”. But ants can’t possibly hold a young girl’s attention indefinitely, so amidst their rifle-carry, all PAX dropped their coupons to performed 10 inch worms, because what young girl doesn’t get distracted by worms? Upon completion of the inch worms, PAX continue marching towards their new anthill until they realized that their sights were set on a hill that had been flooded. So back they went, rifle carrying in single-file, towards the spider-infested hill adjacent to the pickleball courts. They encountered another 5 inch worms on their way.

For this particular little girl, ants share the throne for best bug with the beautiful butterfly. Fortunately for us, there was a very hungry caterpillar inching across the sidewalk alongside the anthill. All PAX performed a low plank across the sidewalk facing the pickleball courts, ensuring about 3ft between them, and the last PAX in line frog-jumped over each of the other 8 PAX to the front of the line, representing how a caterpillar inches its way across the ground. This was repeated in an Indian-run fashion until all PAX had frog jumped the 8 other PAX. No caterpillars (or ants) were harmed during this exercise.

But all that movement made that caterpillar ready to transform, so the PAX turned themselves into the most beautiful butterflies they could be. PAX performed a set of 11s OVER the hill, starting with 10 butterfly situps / 1 scorpion drydock. The aggressive scorpions slowly overwhelmed the butterflies until only one remained.

The Black Crowes “Sting Me” was the signal that the ants were under attack once again, but this time by a swarm of Killer Bees. The PAX hurriedly rifle carried their coupons back to the parking lot, only to be greeted by three killer Bs: Bearcrawls, Burpees, and Broadjumps. PAX bearcrawled out 50 yards, and performed burpee broadjumps back.

The imaginative toddler was a little shaken up by all of the bee stings, and she decided to call it a day.

Ended with:
Count-O-Rama: 9
Name-O-Rama

The Six – Peach

LDP3
Ball of Man

Spreadsheets from the Gloom: 61 and dry, but wet ground. This one meant a lot to me. Being a father changes you. Being a girl dad is just different. You can’t really describe it until it hits you. I felt honored putting this one together for my daughter as a testament to how much she inspires me. We often talk about being leaders, but we don’t talk a lot about being led. The wonderful thing about being a father is the co-leadership that can occur between father and child. Well she does that to me. The kindness. The pride. The imagination. She pushes me to be a better man, challenges me to be a better father. I’ve put together a good number of beatdowns now, the least I can do is dedicate one to her.

Overall, I think the formula was good. There was a little too much rifle carrying…next time I’d find a way to reduce it while still keeping with the theme. I’d have liked to have done more impromptu inch worms to really emphasize how obsessed she is with worms. Maybe an EMOM timer can be incorporated next time. The Caterpillar worked pretty well. Low plank is definitely necessary for safety reasons. 9 people was pushing it for low plank duration, anything more would have been extremely challenging. Next time I’ll run this for an hour. There were a couple of other bugs under the microscope that there wasn’t time for.

I should probably start spending less time on the playlists. The planning on this one got a bit out of hand.

“Paperback Writer” – The Beatles
“Spiderwebs” – No Doubt
“Ants Marching” – Dave Matthews Band
“Red Mosquito” – Pearl Jam
“Butterfly” – Screaming Trees
“Flea Bass Solo” – Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Queen Bee” – Grand Funk Railroad
“Sting Me” – The Black Crowes
“Dragonfly” – Ekoostik Hookah

Sincere thanks for all who posted. I know it wasn’t the hardest, and it was heavy on the shoulders, but it meant a lot for people to show-up knowing it was inspired by my daughter. I hope some of you got at least a sliver of the enjoyment that I got out of it.

One thought on “Grantland (Rotary Park)”

Mike "Photon" Bauer says:

May 8, 2024 at 3:36 pm

Backblast: May 8th, 2024

AO: Grantland – Rotary Park – Perrysburg, OH

PAX:
Photon – Q
Capitol
Irish Hoss
Lego
Lonzo
Mile High
Nitrous
Peach
Phat Thor

Workout: The Garden of Eden

FNG’s: N/A

Mission and Principles:
F3: Fitness, Fellowship, Faith
Mission: To plant, grow and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership.
The core principles of F3 are that it is always:
1. Free of charge
2. Open to all men
3. Held outdoors, rain or shine, heat or cold
4. Led by men who participate in the workout in a rotating fashion, with no training or certification necessary. You versus you. Modify or stop an exercise if you need to. The most important thing is that nobody gets hurt.
5. Ends with a Circle of Trust
Credo: Leave no man behind but leave no man where you find him

Background:
This one was 100% inspired by my daughter whom shall not be named on the interwebs. Her birthday is coming up and I wanted to celebrate her and the way that she inspires me with a workout fit for an imaginative toddler. Turns out the girl loves bugs, so YHC cobbled together a beatdown that followed a young girl’s adventure through her garden.

Warm-up:

SSH – 20 (2 is 1) IC
Windmills – 9 IC

The “Thang”:

The single-file line of PAX started with a rifle carry from the flag to the top of the hill beside the pickleball courts to represent a colony of ants carrying its’ spoils back to the anthill. (YHC carried a 12lb speaker bungeed to a 20lb ruck plate to ensure bug-themed tunes were present throughout the duration). Upon reaching the ant-hill, PAX performed m’Ant-Makers until the ant-hill was attacked by a group of jumping spiders.

As the first notes of No Doubt’s “Spiderwebs” drifted through the air, PAX began a 3min Tabata of jumping spiders (explosive pushups). Six total rounds of AMRAP 20s on, 10s rest.

Once the spiders had been sapped all of their energy, the ANTS set out to find a new home, rifle carrying towards the hill East of the YMCA to DMB’s “Ant’s Marching”. But ants can’t possibly hold a young girl’s attention indefinitely, so amidst their rifle-carry, all PAX dropped their coupons to performed 10 inch worms, because what young girl doesn’t get distracted by worms? Upon completion of the inch worms, PAX continue marching towards their new anthill until they realized that their sights were set on a hill that had been flooded. So back they went, rifle carrying in single-file, towards the spider-infested hill adjacent to the pickleball courts. They encountered another 5 inch worms on their way.

For this particular little girl, ants share the throne for best bug with the beautiful butterfly. Fortunately for us, there was a very hungry caterpillar inching across the sidewalk alongside the anthill. All PAX performed a low plank across the sidewalk facing the pickleball courts, ensuring about 3ft between them, and the last PAX in line frog-jumped over each of the other 8 PAX to the front of the line, representing how a caterpillar inches its way across the ground. This was repeated in an Indian-run fashion until all PAX had frog jumped the 8 other PAX. No caterpillars (or ants) were harmed during this exercise.

But all that movement made that caterpillar ready to transform, so the PAX turned themselves into the most beautiful butterflies they could be. PAX performed a set of 11s OVER the hill, starting with 10 butterfly situps / 1 scorpion drydock. The aggressive scorpions slowly overwhelmed the butterflies until only one remained.

The Black Crowes “Sting Me” was the signal that the ants were under attack once again, but this time by a swarm of Killer Bees. The PAX hurriedly rifle carried their coupons back to the parking lot, only to be greeted by three killer Bs: Bearcrawls, Burpees, and Broadjumps. PAX bearcrawled out 50 yards, and performed burpee broadjumps back.

The imaginative toddler was a little shaken up by all of the bee stings, and she decided to call it a day.

Ended with:
Count-O-Rama: 9
Name-O-Rama

The Six – Peach

LDP3
Ball of Man

Spreadsheets from the Gloom: 61 and dry, but wet ground. This one meant a lot to me. Being a father changes you. Being a girl dad is just different. You can’t really describe it until it hits you. I felt honored putting this one together for my daughter as a testament to how much she inspires me. We often talk about being leaders, but we don’t talk a lot about being led. The wonderful thing about being a father is the co-leadership that can occur between father and child. Well she does that to me. The kindness. The pride. The imagination. She pushes me to be a better man, challenges me to be a better father. I’ve put together a good number of beatdowns now, the least I can do is dedicate one to her.

Overall, I think the formula was good. There was a little too much rifle carrying…next time I’d find a way to reduce it while still keeping with the theme. I’d have liked to have done more impromptu inch worms to really emphasize how obsessed she is with worms. Maybe an EMOM timer can be incorporated next time. The Caterpillar worked pretty well. Low plank is definitely necessary for safety reasons. 9 people was pushing it for low plank duration, anything more would have been extremely challenging. Next time I’ll run this for an hour. There were a couple of other bugs under the microscope that there wasn’t time for.

I should probably start spending less time on the playlists. The planning on this one got a bit out of hand.

“Paperback Writer” – The Beatles
“Spiderwebs” – No Doubt
“Ants Marching” – Dave Matthews Band
“Red Mosquito” – Pearl Jam
“Butterfly” – Screaming Trees
“Flea Bass Solo” – Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Queen Bee” – Grand Funk Railroad
“Sting Me” – The Black Crowes
“Dragonfly” – Ekoostik Hookah

Sincere thanks for all who posted. I know it wasn’t the hardest, and it was heavy on the shoulders, but it meant a lot for people to show-up knowing it was inspired by my daughter. I hope some of you got at least a sliver of the enjoyment that I got out of it.

One thought on “Grantland (Rotary Park)”

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