This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:
the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls
the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.
(Siren Song excerpt, by Margaret Atwood)
Several months ago, the hard – but correct – decision was made to stay away from the Concrete Beast during workouts. It just didn’t feel right to have a bunch of ugly, hard breathing, gas passing dudes filling up the stairwells with rancor while we passed little sweet smelling nurses were on their way to work on Covid patients in the middle of the pandemic. Out of respect, we stayed away. We did a lot of hill repeats on Hospital Hill. Oakwood Hill got a lot of love too. Even that hill from the bottom of Oakwood Hill towards downtown got a lot of usage. Spoke this, spoke that. Burpee Pyramids were sired on Oakwood Hill (thanks Phlegm). ER workouts were still miserable, but just in a different sort of way. And throughout the Parking Lot Ban, that slutty Concrete Beast just sat there and watched us. Judging. Watching. Look at the baby. Look at the baby.
But the Beast can only wait so long before she needs to be fed. 2 weeks ago, we had a soft opening back into the Beast. If we’re being honest about it, I think that the Q just didn’t know about the parking deck ban and the rest of us just rolled with it. Last week Retread broke us back into some modified Old ER laps that sucked and that helped inspire today’s workout.
I was very tempted to call Old ER and just let errbody get after it. But the one drawback to that (other than it sucking real bad) is that there’s almost no chance of mumblechatter. You just take off and hang on for 45 minutes. Plus, that takes away any feeling of suspense from the Q. Pax already know what’s in store for the entire workout.
So how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Here’s what we did:
– No warmups. That’s the Old ER way. 2 laps of OER. When you’re done you have 2 options: burpees until the six arrives or pick up the six. Everyone picked up the six.
– Next lap was ER in reverse. Run backwards to the normal last stop, do LBCs, up stairs for merkins, back down. Run backwards to next stop for LBCs, up for merkins, back down, backwards run to normal first stop, LBCs/Merkins, backwards to the start. Same option: Burpees or PUT6
– Next 2 laps were Old ER with a slight twist: first lap add Bunny Hops per stair while going up.
– Next lap: add squats on each stair.
Everyone did somewhere around 4.5 – 5 laps, which is nothing to sneeze at. Good work fellas.
Notes:
- ER laps, like Eleanor repeats, never seem to get easier.
- It needs to be noted that Publix was seen doing a burpee or two at the end to avoid picking up the 6. Well done sir.
- Sometimes I wish I were 1/2 as fast as Shorty
- Current reports have me tracking at roughly 1/8 as fast as Doughboy. Which, if converted, is about 1/16 as fast as Shorty. I’ll let you do the math on how Doughboy stacks up to Shorty
- This is the first warm rainy day we’ve had in a long time. Cold rain blows chunks.
- No warmups + Cheese’s usual 05:33 arrival + the fact that he always finds us pretty quickly tells me that he’s got a GPS chip embedded up someone’s keyster.
- Speaking of keyster, CrossStitch left the slow guys a gift that keeps on giving in the stairwell. It was a slow build too. At first whiff, it was mild with nutty undertones. But as you climbed the next level, it quickly turned into face melting notes of dog shit. I would also like to state for the record that it hung in the stairwell for at least 2 more laps.
- Igloo still holds the record. He dropped a vapor trail in there one time that lasted for a week.
- To clarify, he holds the record for gas. In the Solids Category, there’s a homeless dude somewhere still talking about the pile he dropped in there for us one morning. That one had dudes wanting to jump off the top level to avoid that smell.
- If you’re interested, each flight of stairs is 9 steps. Each level has 2 flights. There are 4 levels and 2 stairwells. That doesn’t factor the extra steps on the lower end, so if you wanna round up, figure somewhere just north of 144 steps. I’d say it’s 154-160?
- Retread reminded us the time that Flamer called for partner wheelbarrows up each step one time. Kapowski quickly & rather proudly reminded him that that was actually his Q and not Flamers. Either way, that was miserable. Pretty sure I had to modify rather quickly on that one.
- Out. Thanks for posting. See you soon. This side or the otha.
CE
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