COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA:
PAX: Cinco (FTW), Round Up (FTW), Sex Panther, Bandito, Alright Alright, Stingray, Swindled (FNG)
QIC’s: Oatmeal, Wal-Mart, Sweet Baby, Sally, Rump Roast, Pow Pow, Draper
AO: Varied
F3 DISCLAIMER & WELCOME: Given
WARM-O-RAMA:
SSH IC
Cotton Pickers IC
IST IC
While waiting on a couple PAX gathering their gear for the long road ahead
THA THANG:
At midnight, YHC launched the PAX on a ruck just over 15 miles in seven hours from Flag Pole Hill to Burleson Park. A Q change occurred every two miles where he was given 52 minutes to get cover the next two miles and inject pain stations where necessary to fill his time. YHC also included the instruction that no pack was to hit the ground (this proved difficult for YHC and others with a weight vest and a pack. Dexterity was a highly regarded skill especially when Sweet Baby was the Q) PAX converged on Burleson at 0700 to commence an AlrightAlright beat down following the ruck.
MOLESKIN:
What is written below is YHC’s best recollection of events from the Panzerschwein. Details may be sketchy due to YHC’s delinquency in posting or post-traumatic mental preservation!
Where to begin…most of the PAX rallied at Burleson to leave unnecessary vehicles and carpool to Flag Pole Hill. Deciding who was going to drive took a bit longer than expected, but Sex Panther and Sweet Baby stepped up to volunteer.
The ruck got underway a little late as Bandito came in hot just a few minutes before launch and Sex Panther was busy packing for what seemed to be an impending apocalypse even including on his pack a fresh roll of toilet paper. YHC assumes he was a star scout when younger, but went this inquiry went unconfirmed. Mumblechatter was varied throughout at the start as everyone was chipper and full of energy. Several comments (veiled complaints) were made with YHCs choice of music to start the ruck. Apparently, electronic dance music was a little aggressive at the start!
YHC took the opening Q of the night and marched the PAX to the hill preceding the Mockingbird Bridge where YHC had PAX run halfway up the hill, perform 10 merkins, continue up the hill and complete 20 squats. PAX were instructed to run back down the hill where the Al Gore was the exercise of choice while waiting for the six.
As PAX neared the end of YHC’s Q stretch, YHC had PAX march to a pier on the edge of White Rock Late to perform diamond merkins on the piers followed by closing burpees on a nearby concrete pad.
Wal-Mart took the Q baton from YHC and didn’t waste much time getting the PAX into a Jacob’s Ladder between two picnic tables that included step ups and dips as the exercises with bear crawls between the tables. This was greeted with groans as bear crawls and packs generally do not make good companions. Fortunately, no one knocked themselves unconscious and the ruck continued until we stopped for a circle of pain (fire drill) of merkins. Each PAX jogged in place and took turns around the circle announcing “Fire” whereupon the PAX dropped and performed merkins.
It was at this point where Swindled’s name began to bloom. As the merkins and jogging in place got the heartrates above the fat burning zone, he began using YHC’s name in vain to express his displeasure of not being told about the additional exercises that may occur throughout the ruck at each Q’s discretion. A pattern that would not cease throughout the night! YHC was clear with Swindled when the ruck invitation was extended that there would be “fun stations” interspersed throughout the route, but Swindled shared in much more colorful language that his and YHC’s idea of “fun stations” were obviously on very different pages of the dictionary.
At this point, we were a bit behind schedule so the ruck continued until Sweet Baby took over just shy of 0200. We quickly started with another Jacob’s Ladder, but fortunately there was no bear crawling. From there we went straight into a nearby pavilion where we removed packs and proceeded to perform squat thrusts and then dropped to our six to perform LBC’s, packs in hand. Sweet Baby then ordered packs back on and we moved out to continue the ruck. To stay get back on schedule we moved along without any further “fun stations” until Sally took the Q just north of the Write Rock spillway.
By this point, the rucks were gaining weight or at least they felt this way in the PAXs’ minds. The constant shifting and body and packs to alleviate the burden was the only relief available. So Sally inspired the PAX by ordering a jail break to the bridge spanning the spillway at which point we were crabwalk to some imaginary waypoint and then switch to bear crawls for another length to another imaginary landmark at which point we again assumed a vertical orientation and continued rucking up to and over the dam. Sally ordered the PAX to perform irkins on the dam for more “fun” It was also at this stage that country became the music genre of choice. YHC’s EDM was mocked to the point of silence at some point during Sweet Baby’s tenure and I believe Rump Roast’s comment was something along the lines of “silence is better than this crap!”
We continued across the dam to some benches on the other side of the pump house where Sally had the PAX perform derkins and dips. He finished with another station a bit further up while some PAX took a nature break. At this stage of the ruck, any “fun station” left YHC and the other PAX questioning the definition of “fun”.
Following Sally in the deep gloom was Rump Roast who immediately gained his second wind and had the PAX partner up and wheel barrow up a short incline, switch and go back down. YHC was an abject failure performing most exercises at this point and dreamed of nothing more than being ruck pack-free run to an outcropping overlooking the lake; what would be a fine view had the sun been up in the sky! PowPow joined up with the PAX at this stage after running about two miles with his pack (good man…with fresh legs!). Rump then took a page from the Icebox Q manual and immediately set about destroying the PAX’s shoulders with OHC’s, OHP’s Moroccan Dance Clubs and what I remember being a few other shoulder exercises without rest. As can be expected the chatter ramped up with this “fun station” as PAX energy levels were waning by this point.
After the shoulder beat down, the PAX pushed forward on the ruck trying to make up time as YHC was consistently reminding PAX we were behind schedule. We left the scenic confines of the lake on the last half of Rump’s Q and ventured into Lakewood.
This is where PowPow took the Q and reinvigorated the PAX with baggies full of bacon! Being the HIM that he is, PowPow upped the ante to being the bacon on the ruck. At this point, things get fuzzy for YHC as I was just dreaming of dropping the colossus tethered on my back and finding my six on a couch (or bed given the time). However, PowPow hiked the PAX to the pavilion at Ridgewood Park and had us do dips and step ups to the table top. We moved on as time was getting the better of us.
Somewhere around Abrams while on the Ridgewood Trail, Sex Panther finds a Lime scooter and decides he’s going to scoot up the trail with us to, as he put it, “see what Draper, Stingray and Alright’s expression is when they see me on the scooter.” The PAX called BS, but we let him has his rest from which he will forever be reminded (although I think the joke is more on us that failed to snatch the opportunity).
There was chatter about committing bodily harm to AlrightAlright if he was a little too excited when the PAX met up with him. Swindled continued his mumbles of bodily harm and renunciation of his friendship with YHC as well. We finally met up with Draper, Stingray and AlrightAlright at Skillman, which seemed the beginning of the end. The end of what YHC isn’t sure since it was another painful hour and half to go. There was no harming of AlrightAlright in the end and he brought his sunshine out two hours before sunrise.
Draper took over the Q around this time and took pity on the miserable PAX. For having rucked 12 miles or so by this time, a betting man would have probably guessed we were on the Baatan Death March by the misery we espoused. Note to us all, we need more practice…or better shoes! Once again on the verge of finding my happy place, I cannot remember Draper putting us through the paces but I know we did a few exercises on the bridge across Mockingbird and continued onward.
By the last mile, Draper relinquished his Q to Sex Panther who had given up his mobility scooter some miles back. We passed by our Thursday AO at La Madeleine, that further down also houses a CVS (which was the site of some drama shortly after we move on). Sex Panther brought no real pain other than to make the PAX do a jailbreak run for the last half mile of the ruck to go out with a bang! At this point, no one cared for anything in life except getting to Burleson, dropping packs and getting off their feet.
So wraps the first ever Panzerschwein. It truly lived up to its status as CSAUP and the pain lasted for days afterward. Thanks to all the PAX that participated, the Q’s that brought the pain and lastly to Sweet Baby, Sally and AlrightAlright for helping and, in many ways, leading YHC through the planning of the event. We all survived and are closer men having endured the mental and physical pain of the 15 miles…and all we had to look forward to was our normal Saturday beatdown brought to us by AlrightAlright.
Epilogue
Upon finishing the collective beatdowns on Saturday, news broke that the CVS at our Thursday AO was robbed but a mere 10 mins after we passed the parking lot. A number of PAX questioned the cacophony of sirens heard at the start of the Saturday beatdown, and this proved to be the reason. In the days since, there were numerous musings about “what coulda been” had we passed by earlier and gone to buy beer as had been thrown about in conversation. What would have happened to the clerk, to one or several of us, to the robber? In the end, the Good Lord has a plan and for whatever reason we were not meant to intersect with that sequence of events. However, knowing the men of F3 Dallas, if the call arose, we would all respond in a manner that would reflect the HIM’s that we aspire to be.