The Gloom Shall be as if Noonday

The BackBlast:

Not Black Widow – But since Metro won’t give us a name for this tweener workout (despite a mostly metro pax) I’ll borrow from my pax over at the widow. Thanks brothers.  Oh, And this is The Valley AO – We meet at Huntingtowne Farms Elementary at 5:30 on Thursdays.  Just ask Boba Fett.

The truth is, the gloom is always quite gloomy at 4:55am.  But, the gloom has been extra gloomy these days. I look back on the AO’s that became shield locks and the pax that disappeared. The parking lot zoom workouts that were led.  The stories from pax about juggling working from home and the kid’s virtual school as if work wasn’t stressful enough. We all learned about the life cycles of stars and planets in school. Now we know a lot about the 24 wife cycle. Not to mention the added pressure of the pandemic on the soul/psyche when dealing with so much unfamiliar ground.  And the News… or should I say propaganda. To quote my late pops, It feels like “We are all going to hell in hand basket.”

But then comes the gloom.  I for one have said on multiple occasions, “guys, I’m sorry for my rant, but I really needed to get that off my chest.”  I’ve been using these F3 workouts as inexpensive mental health therapy. Really it’s been soul therapy.  Not only has the pax listened to my puke fests, they’ve encouraged me through it.  As a pastor, this has been a bad dream.  As a small business owner, this has been a nightmare. Nothing is consistent. Everything is cancelled. It’s all up in the air.

Except for Jesus… and the gloom. The gloom is always quite gloomy at 4:55am, but at 5:55am, though it’s still dark outside, it appears as the noonday.  Why?  Because the light of men is shining forth in the darkness.  I’m not talking about headlamps and heartrates. I’m talking about Isaiah 58. The context of the passage is true and false fasting.  It could be true and false praying.  Or true and false religion.  The important thing is that it’s true.  And in that truth (which is so hard to find these days) “your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom will be as the noonday.”  In the morning gloom, beneath the mumble chatter, the sweat, the push and the pull there is truth.  The opinions may differ, for there are as many as there are pax, but at 5:55am, when your gritting your teeth pushing and pulling or being pushed and pulled, the façades are dropped and you find only truth and the gloom becomes as if noonday.

That’s what happened today at The Valley.  How was your workout?

Oh and these 13 pax also did these movements:

COP

• SSH x 25 IC
• Squat x 20 IC
• Imperial Walkers x 20 IC
• Merkins x 10 IC
• Sharon Towers x 12 IC (I got bored)

the Thang

• Mosey to the greenway bridge
  • Bear Crawl across the bridge
  • plank o rama
• Mosey to the rock pile and pick your poison
  • Curls x 20 IC
  • Squats x 11 IC (I got tired)
  • Overhead press x 10 IC
  • Curls x 15 IC
• GOP gave a 20 count while we walked to the start of “piss your pants”
  • Sprint to the top and plank when you get there
  • Plank o rama with hold highs and lows
• Mosey UP through Park South Station to the clubhouse parking lot
  • 4 corners – 10 merkins/15 wide arms/20 LBC’s/25 jump squats then plank at the start
  • Plank o Rama
• Mosey to the circle at park south station entrance for partner catch me if you can
  • 5 merkins then catch your partner
  • flapjack ad nauseam
  • Plank for the six
• Mosey down Archdale back to the greenway
  • some sort of mary until the six arrived
• Mosey down the green way to the cut through to the Charlotte Tennis club
  • Heals to heaven IC until the six
• Mosey through the woods to and up Tall Oaks Torcher Topper
  • Mary until the six
• Mosey back to the Flag

Moleskin

We may have gone a few minutes overtime but no one noticed… and but covered 3.5 miles during ME; 4.6 with prerun EC.  Nice work gents and thank you.  Thank you for the gloom.

Sloppy