May 4th, 2020 By Spud

Fellow Pax, as you all may know, the F3 Meca region has been closed since March 18 out of deference to our leaders and out of an abundance of caution for the health and safety of our Pax and our loved ones. That’s a total of 47 days and counting without an official F3 beatdown, so it’s been way too long.  By the time we hit Saturday, it will have been 52 days, over 7 weeks, since an on the books workout.

We are now nearing the expiration of North Carolina’s shelter in place order and we are preparing for the “reopening” of workouts.  Our first official beatdown is scheduled to be on Saturday May 9th at 0630 at Old Courthouse Theater.  This is our new permanent time and AO for Saturdays as selected by an overwhelming majority of the Pax.

Provided the Shelter in Place order is not extended, we are planning to return to our normal workout schedule.  We will not be hosting any online workouts, but you can check the 1st F channel on the F3 Meca slack as well as the F3 Social Distancing Twitter account for those options if you’re not quite ready to head back out yet.  You can also read the day’s Backblast and try to replicate the workout.

This is how we’re doing it:

Time/Location: No time changes, back to 0530 on T/W/Th and 0630 on Saturday. If that doesn’t work for you, please feel free to continue OTB beatdowns/runs until your situation gets back to making you hit it at 0530.

Social distancing: Social distancing protocols will remain in effect so resist your urges, no touching, no sharing of coupons. No worries, there will be plenty of time for man touching in the future.  If you choose to wear a mask, you will only be made fun of a little bit.

COT: Mary and COT will consist of the entire group who shows up for the workout, at 6 feet apart, so we may have some sizable circles.

Coffeeteria: is obviously up to the individual as always, but we have been making it work over at GWC. #supportlocal

Groups:  Numbers will need to be at 10 and under, which may require splitting the group from one into 2. We very rarely have 20+, but if that happens, we’ll figure it out.

How we’ll do it:  My plan is that we sign up both a Q and a SQ, which stands for second Q. The main Q will ideally provide the second Q with their workout with the beatdown in advance. If there are 10+, the workout will split, 10 or less, and the SQ just knows the beatdown and we stay in one group.  The SQ is not required to write a Backblast. Hopefully this lasts around 3-4 weeks until Phase 1 expires and we can move into even more normal protocols.

Backblasts: You guys have had almost 2 months off from backblasts, so bring your writing fingers. It will be very important to ensure we do backblasts at each workout to bring us back to our normal standards.

Fitness: If you haven’t been able to work out much, no worries, the credo is still no man left behind, we’ll always be there to pick up the six.  Your brothers are there to provide that push you may have missed.

If you’re still social distancing, no pressure. The gloom will be here when you’re ready.  No matter what you’re doing, make sure you keep Him First, and we’ll see you in the gloom…SOON!

AYE!

-Spud

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