Naked Man Moleskin

Oh geez…where do I even begin.  Let’s just say it was an honor to be called to Q the final time at Holy Hill. Our Nan’tan Roach Coach went back in the archives, down in the F3 Naperville vault buried deep in the underground tunnels beneath The Outpost, stepped over FIB’s old dusty Snowman suit, around the Oberweis Dairy cooler that Bob Ross used to bring, moved down the hallway past the picture of Captian Underpants with his cape and goggles on, had to crawl over the minivan that was used by the gang of “Reapers” that stole Foxburry’s (Old Black Panther) flag and held it ransom, nearly slipped on Handy Manny’s 40+ lbs of fat that he shed years ago as he went full on beast mode, and finally grabbed the F3 Naperville Book of Legends and Tales, blew the dust off, said a quick hello to ICBINB (since he has been hiding down there since early 2019), and opened it to see who kicked off HH’s first post and low and behold, little ole’ me.

So when I got the call and started thinking about the February 22nd, 2018 date opening of HH, which really was just a way we could increase the elevation a bit since OP doesn’t have a hill like that.  HH offered up a sand volleyball court, a big open field, Baseball diamonds, a BB court for suicide runs, and two different hills.  We thought, how cool would it be for us to do some kick ass IC counting on top of that hill around the cross all lit up at 0515 ITG??  What cool pictures, what cool videos it would make. We were so proud of them, as CommzQ I posted them all over social media. Even the Amber Fields FB page to try to indirectly get the word out to the lazy sacks that lived right there to come out and join us.  What I quickly failed to realize was that while our F3 Naperville region was starting to gain some social media hype and following, we just highlighted who the “crazy people screaming and yelling like some cult on top of the hill at 5am!” were.  As some Amber Field resident commented on our F3 Naperville FB page. LOL Didn’t see that one coming.   Oooops… I forgot how much of a loud mouth Urkel can be.  I’m always telling him to take it down a notch, but he is really hard headed.

We thought.. man how cool is this.. We have our second AO, let’s keep the ball rolling and open up another, and another, and another.  Why not… I mean Elmer Fudd was busy in his excel laboratory crunching numbers, looking at addresses, GEO Fencing the shit out every PAX and where they lived. So in a way HH was a springboard for us to realize that change was good and the guys responded well to mixing it up.  I’d be lying if I knew the exact order of all the AO’s but I’m sure someone can find that out. More importantly our Region’s early growth and success was because we were unafraid of change.  We did bug the shit out of our friends, neighbors, work colleagues, churches, etc… Hell we used to run up to people we saw working out at the same park and got all up in their personal space and invited them to workout with us. There were even times when FIB and I texted wives to ask “if their hubby’s can come out and play” to get rid of their bullshit excuse they kept using and blaming their family and kids for not showing up. LOL.   That shit was fun. For us anyway.

Back then it was like a standing appointment to see your boys.  No one wanted to miss a day because we wanted to hang with each other.  What crazy workout was FIB going to run us through today? What kind of arm sleeve was urkel gonna wear today? What stupid ass song was Crabgrass going to make us do push ups too? Was Coldcuts really going to make us run through 3 feet of snow?  How many J-LOs was Captain Underpants going to make us do today?  And God forbid you fartsack!!!  There was no slack channel to get called out on… one would wake up to take “one’s” kid to school to find out his car had the words “FARTSACKER” and “SHAME” all over the windows! LOL…

But that was the good shit! That was the stuff that our families all thought was insane.  But it’s exactly what idiots like us were searching for and something we needed.  We didn’t know how much damn fun it would be, and it spread like wildfire! It was freaking unbelievable…  I mean when a 64 year old man named Bob Ross is kicking your ass as Q on a regular basis…where else are you gonna find this kind carnival ride. It was and still is LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE!  To be honest I’ll never understand it, but I love the SHIT out of it.  We all have our stories of how we started and why we do it.  Some of us have spoken at COT’s and cried like babies and didn’t even see it coming.  When that shit happens.. you are hooked.  I don’t care how tough you are, how fast you can run a mile, how many merkins you can do, and how many gadgets you can actually wear during a workout (URKEL).  It’s because of each and every one of you guys, that F3 Naperville is the NUMBER 1 Region in the Country.  We are from all walks of life… some big, some small, some badass, some trying to be badass, some Democrat, some Republican, some old, some young. But when you are in a Bear Crawl position trying to get up a hill just to raise some stupid concrete block over your head 25 times, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, it sometimes feels like you are going to war together and that’s the shit that binds us.

Along the way we have been blessed to have some real leaders among leaders… taking 1st, 2nd, and 3rd F to a whole new level.  It has been awesome to witness. I’m sad to see HH officially leave our AO location’s directory, but I know that it will be used on “Field Trip” workouts, Black Diamonds, and more.  I am so looking forward to the Two Wolves AO, the story behind the name, and all the sweat that will be left in that park!  I had a kick ass time at this final workout and I’m thankful that I had 63 friends to share that with.  Let’s keep searching for that next Holy Hill to climb!

Run if you can, Walk if you have to, Crawl if you must.. but never give up!

Appletini – OUT!