4 pax for XL at 0545. 8 pax for regular workout at 0630. We lost a pax from XL to the regular session because his M had texted him with the command of “You woke them (the 2.0s and the dog) up when you left. Get home.” In the interest of marital harmony (i.e., not having to hear about it all weekend), the pax left our fraternal confines and headed home.
Conditions: Cold (low 30s). Frosty. Soggy.
XL (0545)
COP: All IC – SSH (10x); Merkins (10x); Mountainclimbers (10x)
The Thang
Grab 2 blocks, head to the upper soccer field, which was very, very moist. Drop one block at one end, take the second to the other.
From the end of the soccer field, do the following:
-25x curls; run the length of the field; 25x curls; run the length of the field; 25x curls; run the length of the field; 25x curls; run the length of the field.
-This time, no blocks: Run the length of the field 4x.
-25x rows; run the length of the field; 25x rows; run the length of the field; 25x rows; run the length of the field; 25x rows; run the length of the field.
-This time, no blocks: Run the length of the field 4x.
-25x curls; run the length of the field; 25x curls; run the length of the field; 25x curls; run the length of the field; 25x curls; run the length of the field. Total miles at this point: 1.1 ish mi.
-Back to the block pile, put up blocks.
-Back to the parking lot, mosey from parking lot to top of the driveway at the street and back. Recover, recover. Total miles: 1.3-1.4 ish, a little south of our 2.0 stated goal.
Regular Session (0630)
One pax left from XL, 3 remained, and 5 showed up. We did not have our requisite 10 for handball. We did not have 14 to play. We had to make a choice: Early coffeteria, an on-the-fly WO, or something else. The pax chose something else.
Luckily FN3 had a Frisbee, so the pax played 4 on 4 Ultimate on a very wet and swampy handball field.
Team JD: JD, Hokey, FN3, and STH
Team Pothole: Pothole, YHC, Milkman, Arrears.
Some sloppy throws and dropped passes (it’s been a while). However, Team JD ended up getting the better of the Potholes by at least 5 scores. Individually and collectively, the JDs were a little more clutch. And FN3 can get up to make a catch on offense or break up a pass on D. Dude is an athlete.
Mosey back to the shovel flag.
COT/Count/Announcements/Prayer
Special Thanksgiving WO on Thurs: WO at 0630; Flag football at 0730. Hopefully, the fields will be dryer.
Show up on Tuesday. All hands on deck for that workout.
Moleskin
This week, there was a lot of chatter on the Twitter after Depot managed to post only 1 pax for the Thursday workout. Shots were fired after a pax in Chapin decided to make some hay about the number with a provocative tweet or 2 and the skirmish went on for another day or so. If you follow Depot on the Twitter chat, you were privy to the active discussion regarding the same.
All of this got me thinking.
I did not post on Thursday. I had originally been signed up for the Q; however, I ended up having to go to Beaufort that morning for work and asked another Depot pax to take the Q. He graciously did; he was the only one that showed up.
I left for Beaufort at about 0545. At that point, it was both cold and rainy. Very cold. Very rainy. I thought to myself: “I wonder who would really show up in this weather.” Turns out, no one did other than the Q.
The fact that no one showed up other than the Q can be thought about one of two ways: (1) Getting super histrionic with one another about how we let each other down and solemnly resolve that we will never let it happen again, which is typically the response; or (2) recognize that it was very cold and very rainy and, objectively speaking, there was really no reason to be running around the fields in Ballentine at 0530 unless you were really motivated to do it.
Turns out no one was really motivated to do that.
And that’s okay.
But it would have been just as okay if 3 super motivated pax showed up and did jumping jacks in the rain. They would have been there because they wanted to be.
I recently listened to a podcast by Tim Ferriss wherein he was discussing his approach to how he spends his time. Unless the opportunity presented to him is something that he thinks “Hell yeah!” I want to do that, he doesn’t do it. For him, just like the rest of us, our time, our resource, our attention, and even our emotion and motivation are finite. They’re not limitless. It’s imperative that we are picky with how we spend our time. So, if standing in the beating rain and risking getting the flu and potentially impairing your work and your family’s health doesn’t fall into the ambit of “Hell yeah!” that’s okay. Conversely, if doing pushups in a puddle is exactly what you want to do, then make it happen. The absolute best workouts I have ever been to is when everyone in the circle was 100% motivated to be there. And some of those work outs had 3-4 pax at them. They were still excellent.
We spend a lot of time worrying about numbers. And in all candor, I think we get overly fixated on numbers. We gauge our organization’s health by how many people show up at the WOs. Inevitably what happens when we go through periods of low attendance (due mostly to weather or hunting or other big events going on in our lives), we resort to using psychology to pump up interest and arguably guilt one another into showing up using phrases like “accountability,” etc. Accountability is a powerful and wonderful thing and it’s arguably something very lacking in our society. And accountability is a fundamental tenet of F3; however, it’s not a thing that should be used as a tool of manipulation to hit somebody over the head with to guilt them into doing something they really don’t want to do. That’s weak. Sometimes, it’s deer season. Or sometimes, it’s just too rainy for it to make sense of a particular pax to post. He’s not being unaccountable (because this isn’t the landing at Normandy); it’s just that he doesn’t want to get sick and ruin his family’s upcoming holiday. Sometimes, it’s just as simple as that.
While numbers are a factor or a gauge of how popular some activity may be, it’s not necessarily the determinant of the organization’s health. You can have a lot of people show up to a workout or a church service or whatever, but those numbers may be inflated because showing up was the popular thing to do or many of the participants there were guilted into it via incessant texts and DMs the night before from otherwise well-meaning pax. In that case, the outward support that allegedly exists for the organization is a mile wide and an inch thick. Instead, the true gauge of the organization’s health and influence on the membership is how committed are the pax who show up actually are. Do they come because they want to? Do they subscribe to all 3 Fs? That’s a big one for me. Personally, the pax who shows up only for a workout and is an athlete but doesn’t engage or adopt the other 2 Fs is arguably really not in F3. He might have a nickname and can do a ton of sit ups, but there’s really no difference between working out in a weigh room and F3 WO if he doesn’t also embrace the 2d and 3rd Fs. Arguably, the 2d F is why there is an F3 and why it is an enduring idea. Read “Free to Lead” for support for that proposition. I suggest that we make F3 that much more of a “Hell Yeah” thing by increasing our commitment to the 2d and 3rd Fs and strengthening the ties that bind outside our work out times.
To wrap up:
-We need to always keep recruiting and encouraging one another to remain active in F3 in a consistent and meaningful way; however,
-We should not be fixated on numbers as a gauge of the organization’s health;
-We should not use “accountability” as a tool or weapon of manipulation to essentially guilt or conscript pax into participation; and
-We should respect that each man has different interests (not everyone wants to play handball or ruck or run or do 1000 push ups) and that each man goes through different seasons in his life and that priorities shift from time to time. Sometimes, running around in the rain isn’t a “Hell Yeah” kind of thing.