A visit to Swansboro

Nine men joined YHC for a beautiful beat down in S’boro this morning. The weather was DBP. No hint of a breeze and temps were mild, at least compared to the past few days. Warm A Rama had not even ended and Cheech was stripping off layers.

Yesterday afternoon, after helping a friend in Emerald Isle with some things, YHC moseyed to the Muninciple Park in Swansboro for a little recon work. This, as I would discover this morning, turned out to be a smart move. YHC had never posted there yet found the park, just as advertised, directly behind Walgreens. There was a nice large field with soccer goals and a very nice playground along with a running trail that appeared to circle the park. The fields were nice and dry, YHC found the monkey bars that would suffice for doing pull ups, and there were two shelters containing numerous picnic tables. Perfect.

Back in Beaufort, the workout was thought through and notes made. Alarm was set for 4:15…are you freaking kidding me?? The journey would be approx. 30 miles and roughly 45 minutes outbound. Off goes the alarm, I spring out of the sack and get dressed. For some unknown reason, time kinda got away from YHC. With zero traffic, YHC arrives in S’boro under the allotted time, but has a hard time finding the Walgreen’s. YHC has been by that store countless times. Why couldn’t I find it? Then it hit: there were no lights on the store. Zero illumination. Had I gone by it? Was I not there yet? Mild panic sets in. After 2 failed attempts, Siri finally comes through. YHC had overshot the runway by about 2 miles. A U turn straight out of the Dukes of Hazard puts me back on track and YHC sees the store in its darkened state. Pulling into the parking lot behind the store at 0518, there are exactly zero cars or trucks to be seen. Uh oh. At least 4 HC’s had been counted as of last night. Surely they all hadn’t bailed. Then, across the playground I See some lights. YHC is in the wrong lot. Fortunately YHC had scoped out that end of the park yesterday as well so I knew the route to take. Arriving at 0522 I felt as if I was late. Whew.

At the hard start time of 0530, YHC requests all hats off and a moment of silence in memory of the men and women that gave the supreme sacrifice at Pearl Harbor 77 years ago today.

Hats back on, it’s down to business. YHC was notified of one FNG. Mission statement temporarily skipped but disclosure disclosed. Navy makes a request for an extended Warm a Rama since us older guys need to loosen their muscles and joints a little longer. Request granted.

Warm a Rama:

3 Burpees OYO
SSH 30 count I/C
Mountain Climbers 10 count I/C
L over R and R over L 10 count
10 Merkins S/C
Downward Dog/ Upward Dog
30 seconds or so of OYO stretches.

One of the PAX asked if there would be a Mission Statement recited. YHC delivered it flawlessly. YHC then asked the PAX for the 5 core principles of F3. Again, a near perfect delivery by the PAX

The Thang:

Mosey to the nearest picnic shelter for one round of dips, 20 count I/C.
20 Dirkens S/C and 10 Uerkins S/C.

Mosey to the pull up bar station. Well it was actually a set of monkey bars but they served the purpose. 5 PAX would do 10 pull ups while the other 5 would hold plank. Each man would go for 3 rounds of 10.

Mosey to the soccer field for the Merkin Mile. Simple enough: One Merkin at the first soccer goal. Sprint to the 3rd goal, approx. 100 yards away. Do 2 Merkins. Sprint back to first goal for 3 Merkins, etc. You were done after your last set of Merkins, 18 count. That’s a total of 171 Merkins and one mile covered.

After a somewhat bungled recovery count off, YHC called for the LBC mile. One LBC, I/C sprint. 2 LBC’s I/C sprint. Same format as the Merkin Mile. The hard part of that exercise was the constant up and down. After YHC, who does not own a watch had done 14 or so reps, the current time was requested. YHC was shocked to hear it was 0611. Where had the time gone? Fast Mosey back to parking lot for one round of LSF and another 10 Merkins, wide arm this time with 2 six inch holds thrown in for good measure. Hard stop. Name a Rama then we welcomed Gangplank. Great to have you. Give this man a couple of weeks and let him Q. Guaranteed he’ll put a USMC beat down on our candy asses!

Announcements: Christmas party on Dec. 15 for the Western PAX, same day as the Eastern PAX.

Prayer concerns included Princess and his niece on the loss of her unborn baby, Lassie’s Brother, Purple Rains’ family over the Holidays. There may have been others and YHC apologizes in advance if any were skipped.

It’s always fun to attend a new AO from time to time. I had a great time and it’s always good to put faces to the names that we see posted on Slack.

So here is my invitation: Beaufort is arguable the prettiest AO in all of Carterico. You guys pick a day, T W or Thur and pay us a visit. Yes, it’s a bit of a drive, but it will be worth it, especially if you catch a calm day and a full moon. You won’t regret it.

It was a pleasure to Q this morning. And thank your for your hospitality!

Puddles out.

SYITG!!