May 30, 2018

Enduring the 8-Count at the Barracks

THE SCENE:
Lovely morning at my alma mater, and a great turnout for our Barracks ruck workout. 11 HIM showed up ready to work, including Nature Boy and Snowman, who made the drive from Germantown. Bruce was up to Q, but got busy, so YHC volunteered to take on the ruckers. 

F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
Did that

WARM-O-RAMA:
Rucks off – SSH x10, Daisy Picker x10, Windmill x10, High Knees x10
Rucks on – SSH x20, Slow Squat x10

THA-THANG:
We grabbed various and sundry coupons and started rucking. As I was sitting in my easy chair last night pondering this workout, my mind kept coming back to the 8-count body-builder. It’s an unforgiving exercise, and a very popular one among GORUCK cadre. I also kept thinking of the parking garage stairs. YHC Q’d at the Annex yesterday and did 11’s. Eureka! 11’s using the stairs! Typically, 11’s is done with two different exercises, but since you can’t improve upon the 8-count, we stuck to that. 

Of course, none of this was known to the PAX when we made the turn towards the Tower of Terror, but I heard a few groans as we approached. We stopped near the stairs, did 10 8-count BBs in cadence, picked our coupons back up, and climbed 5 flights to the top. Planked until all in. One 8-count BB on your own. Ruck down the ramps to start. Nine 8-count BBs in cadence, up the stairs, 2 8cBBs, down the ramps. Eight 8cBBs, up the stairs, 3 8cBBs, down most of the ramps.

YHC was set on completing the 11s, so for the sake of time, we stopped at one of the ramps to finish off our set. Here we did seven 8cBBs, double-timed it up the ramp, 4 8cBBs, walk back down. We still ran up against time, so we did the last 13 8cBBs at the bottom in sets of 4, 4, 5. YHC was smoked and leaned on the PAX to help call the exercises in cadence down the stretch.

MARY:
N/A

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
11 PAX, 1 40 lb sandbag named D-Bo, 2 CMUs, 1 35 lb kettlebell named Damien – no FNGs, but who can blame them?

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
(This is a copy/paste from Tuesday at the Annex) Leviticus 19:9-10 says, “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.”

That passage has been convicting for me lately thinking about how I spend my time and money. God instructed his people to leave some of their earnings (crops) for the poor and sojourner. I should do the same with my earnings and my time, so that if I have a neighbor in need, I’ve got some left to give. Our culture tells us to either indulge and spend it all, or hoard and save it all. God calls us to be radically generous. 

MOLESKIN:
2.5 miles, 15 flights of stairs, handful of ramp runs, and 110 8-count body builders. Not bad at all.

There is no way I’d ever do 110 8cBBs and 15 flights of stairs by myself. Very thankful for all the PAX that showed up and didn’t quit. Some of my 8cBBs at the end looked truly sad, but none of us stopped.

Gear: Nature Boy was leaking sand for about a third of the workout. Most were commenting on their rucks hitting the backs of their heads (no one was concussed…as far as we know). Shout-out to Wrangler for making the best value rucking pants in the world.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Father Abraham graduation at the Warriors Center
2nd F gathering at Levitt Shell this Saturday