Backblast: May 23rd, 2026
AO: The Fortress – Grace Church – Perrysburg, OH
PAX:
Photon – Q
Carmen Sandiego
Deliverance
Meatloaf
Spaulding
Stark
Tarnished
Trench – FNG
Ukulele
Workout: 1000th Post: The Steps to Ambassador
FNG’s: Trench
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
Warm-up: N/A
The “Thang”:
This was a beatdown that chronicled my journey to 1000 posts in F3 through four very particular steps.
Each step represented a particular exercise or type of work that I learned to perform at all, or learned to perform very well, and each step increased in order of magnitude as well as difficulty in an attempt to emphasize how F3 has the ability to accelerate a man non-linearly when he commits to consistency.
My 2nd post in F3 had me at The Necropolis for a Stark run Q. He had plans to make it to the Perrysburg city pool (prior to Nightmare’s establishment) that day, but had to change his route because YHC was not a runner. I was slow. I couldn’t breathe. And at the end of the beatdown, I couldn’t even run. So he picked up the 6 and walked with me.
Step 1 in my F3 journey was learning to run. To represent learning to run, we ran the large trail around Woodlands Park, which was right around 1 mile.
Early on in my F3 career, I started taking a liking to animal movements. First was bear crawls (as evident by my 3rd or so Q), and soon after, murder bunnies and crab walks. I learned that my shoulder range of motion (thanks, Coconut) and my long limbs (ask Fat Amy) provided me with the tools to perform these movements quickly and efficiently.
Step 2 in my F3 journey was learning to love animal movements. To represent my love of animal movements, I stole one of my top 3 non-Photon beatdowns of all time and ran a portion of Stark’s “No Reps, No Running, No Burpees” beatdown. But I amended it and incorporated only my favorite animal movements from that beatdown…ones that, when arranged in the right order, allowed for incredible efficiency in movement across the parking lot. 5 MOTs, 2 parking spaces each, for 10 spaces total. 10 rounds straight. Bunny Hop, Bear Crawl, (blockless) Murder Bunny, (blockless) Ape Hop, Forward Crab Walk.
Two weeks into my F3 journey, I carpooled with Callahan to The Nest on a holiday for a Raven beatdown whose groupMe event sounded interesting… Something about mountain climbing. Little did I know, that event would end up being an abridged version of burpee mountain. And it absolutely destroyed me. I couldn’t even do the first 8 rounds of 8 burpees per minute. Or the second 7 rounds of 7 burpees per minute. The playlist was lit that day, however…and that beatdown planted a seed in me. Weeks and months later, and I started to like burpees. Even love them. And now? Now I can do 500 burpees in an hour.
Step 3 in my F3 journey was learning to love and embrace the best exercise in the swamp…the burpee. And no better way to represent my love for burpees than to rip off 100 in a row…mid beatdown. So that’s what we did.
I remember the first time I was present at a Thor 100 (2 is 1) SSH warmup. It was at the Fortress…before a Mario Kart beatdown, maybe? And it was as hilarious as it was hard. Fast forward a year later…I had hurt my shoulder and couldn’t do anything upper body. It was my 500th post and I had the Q at The Armory. I started warming up with SSHs and Viper made a joke that we should do 500 of them. And I can’t let a good suggestion go to waste, so we did. 250 (2 is 1) SSHs. Fast forward another year and I ran The Nightmare Before Christmas…focusing on the idea of SSH-ing until you couldn’t anymore, before falling into your own personal nightmare exercise. Fortunately for me, Ukulele was there that day and we pushed each other to perform 500 (2 is 1) straight without stopping.
Step 4 in my F3 journey was learning to love copious amounts of SSHs. Amounts so absurd that people didn’t think that it was possible. To represent my love for ludicrous amounts of SSHs, and another order of magnitude, the PAX performed 500 (2 is 1) SSHs, in cadence, to finish the beatdown.
Step 1: 1 mile
Step 2: 10 parking spaces of animal movements, 10 times
Step 3: 100 burpees
Step 4: 1000 SSHs
Ended with:
Count-O-Rama: 9
Name-O-Rama
The Six – Spaulding
LDP3
Ball of Man
Spreadsheets from the Gloom: 55 and wet, but the rain had stopped. This was a pretty Photon beatdown if I’ve ever seen one; a good representation of my 2.5 years in the gloom, and a reminder of what that kind of consistency can do. I had a concern going into it that 100 straight burpees mid-beatdown would be too hard, and that 1000 in cadence SSHs POST burpees would be impossible, but the PAX proved that concern false. There were at least two…possibly up to 4 or 5 who were able to perform all 1000 SSHs even at the tail end of that burner.
Would I do anything different on this? Yes. I’d cut the run down to exactly a mile. The Woodlands trail loop is about 1 mile, but we ran to and from that loop, extending the run to closer to 1.3 or so. That was an additional 3 or 4 minutes that could have been used somewhere else. The animal movement sets and the burpees were called after the first 3 PAX finished. Next time, I’d like to try and eek out enough time that we can pick up the 6 on those steps and allow all PAX to complete all 4 sections of the beatdown. Aside from that, though…I wouldn’t change a thing. The beatdown was extremely challenging while displaying my journey to 1000 posts. Only thing it didn’t include was a dance routine. But that didn’t mean it didn’t have a tailored playlist. YHC stepped-up his game and created four mini playlists for each of the four steps of the ambassador journey.
Step 1:
“Run” – Foo Fighters
“Harder To Breathe” – Maroon 5
“Easier To Run” – Linkin Park
Step 2:
“Crawl” – Kings Of Leon
“Crawling In The Dark” – Hoobastank
“Animals” – Nickelback
“Animal I Have Become” – Three Days Grace
Step 3:
“Bodies” – Drowning Pool
“Get Up And Jump” – Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Tubthumping” – Chumbawamba
Step 4:
“At The Hop” – Danny And The Juniors
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash” – The Rolling Stones
“Jump Around” – House Of Pain
“Jump” – Kriss Kross
“Jump” – Van Halen
It’s always a pleasure to lead the HIMs of the swamp, but this particular Q hit a bit differently. F3 has the capacity to change a man specifically because of the men within those COTs every morning. And it’s impossible to stand in 1000 of those and not come out better on the other side. I truly appreciate the pushes, the guidance, the laughs, and the prayers of the PAX of F3 Black Swamp. I wouldn’t be where I am without you guys.