August 17th, 2025 By Spud

Date: 8/16/25

Pax: Tombstone, Catfish, El Ab, Psycho T, Luthor, Private Ryan, Gooney, Marlboro, Homeland, Spud

Other pax at COT training for running stuff: Loveboat, Dud, Hop Hunter, Sterling

10 men showed up to get plowed.  No double entendres there.  Muggy as shit.

Warm Up

Start with 8 Mosey up to Union to the office of a statuesque Edward Jones advisor for

• ssh x 20
• ist x 15
• loose change x 10
• arm circles

As we were warming up, all three of El Ab, Luthor, and PR came in various degrees of hurry, but show up they did, and a solid crew was here for

THAT THANG

Good Ol mosey with pain stations.  In this case, several stops as we went down union, left on Eastcliff back to some random apartments, then down and up MARBLE HILL.  Other hills, eat your hearts out, this is a solid ass kicker for the IYKYK types.  Stopped like 7 or 8 times during our five mile trek, getting 7 Hand release merkins, 7 V-ups and 7 squats each stop.  Then mosey back up to Dollar Tree and back down Union with a couple more stops to OCT at 7:29:30 and a total of 5.01 miles.

MARY

No time

COT

Prayed for Josh (Cat’s DIL’s brother), the Carroll family who work with Marlboro at the loss of their daughter, and for Loveboat’s daughter Lanie as she was dedicated on Sunday.

MOLESKIN

We got it Saturday.  5 miles, around 200 reps, tons of sweat, tons of brotherhood.  Marble hill is no joke, also pretty much a Saturday only kinda thing because you gotta get there to run it.  Everyone SMOKED it.

Cat said it at COT, as he was preparing for a big day on Thursday, texts of motivation, encouragement, confidence flew in from this group.  Get you a group like this.  F3 nation is a hell of a platform upon which to build, but that’s the beautiful thing about it, it’s a platform.  It’s an IKEA box of tools with no stick figure instructions.  Build it how you want to build it.  Some groups work out, go home, and talk about how great the workout was on slack.  You do you.

What we’ve built in MECA and especially in F3Concord is special.  A group of about 25-30 guys who would give you the shirt off their back, as long as you can handle a dick joke.  A group that prays for each other, encourages one another, and relentlessly razzes one another.  A group that realizes that while words matter, actions blast words out of the water.  A group that has found the secret sauce to succeed where other F3 AOs have not.  A group that ranges from late 20s to mid 60s and can talk about damn near anything.
7 years ago on August 16, 2018,  El Ab and KGB finally talked me into showing up. I was pudgy and could barely run up and down the bridge to ASEC hill without having to pant.  I thought I was in ok shape.  I wasn’t. I am now, and I have further to go.  I am a better, husband, father, leader.  I am more confident, I am stronger, have shaved off around 40 pounds, and am about in as good of shape as I have been since undergrad.  I’ve run distances and done things I’d thought not possible for me at.  I hope other men have the same success stories.  It didn’t have to be through F3 but I got lucky, this was given to me.  Give it to others, but only if they can take a joke.  Here’s to 7 more years of the grind.

-Spud

“If you keep a thing for seven years, you are sure to find a use for it” – Walter Scott

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