Merkan Mania

Preamble:

Today we had fantastic numbers for our pre-activities. 7 pre-ruckers, and 3 pre-runners: i love seeing the extra credit hour so full – this is a great AO full of top notch guys, and i couldn’t be happier to see the success Nirvana has experienced.

Warm-O-Rama:

This is Nirvana, YHC had the Q today and didn’t want a warmup, so we skipped it – there was enough to do without it anyway. So, off we went on an easy peasy mosey…

The Thang:

1. So, the mosey was a merkan mile, destination unknown (to the PAX) but there was a great location in mind for the second part to follow (see photos posted by hotsauce in nirvana channel)

Several stops along the way for a variation of merkans; regular, incline, decline, etc. Roughly 80 reps performed in this segment. At each stop all PAX waited in plank after their reps until the last man performed his 10; no man left behind. 1 mile later we arrived at a yet-to-be visited parking deck in beautiful downtown Crabapple, complete with Milton graffiti as a back drop.

2.  Next up was a true burner. EMOM timer for the following:

10 jump squats, 5 hand release merkans, 3 SSH, max reps burpees. At each minute you start again. 75 burpees ends it. The issue is, as each round progresses, you get pretty gassed, and have time to perform fewer and fewer burpees, resulting in Many Many rounds of non-stop heart pumping action. Thankfully, we had some cat calls from the yoga and twisted cycle ladies to keep us encouraged! Average man performed roughly 60-70 hand release merkans here: plus the 75 burpees…

3. What goes out for a mile, must come back for that mile. So, a merkan mile return trip was in order. Stopped another 7-8 times for merkans in sets of 10, so…score +70-80 more

4. Head to the track for 4 corners escalator: 5,10,15,20. alpha Mtn climbers, merkans, LBC, alpha flutters. 1st lap in escalator format. 2nd lap perform all 4 exercises at all 4 corners. When finished, run another bonus lap just for fun. Merkan count now is ~300 (not including burpees)

Head back to flag for 5mins of mary. Various PAX called out their fav and we closed things out with a confusing double count and name-off ( totally my fault, but i had us do it twice, and people got uncomfortable)

COT:

No prayers outside of Ukraine were mentioned, but we all know there are plenty of unspoken needs among every group that gathers, so we lifted all to the Lord and were reminded to lean on Him in our times of need

Naked-Man Moleskin:

Humbled to lead such an elite group today – the PAX felt pushed by this BD, but really YHC was pushed by the PAX – iron sharpens iron