The CDC says the chances of being struck by lightning in a given year are only around 1 in 500,000. However, some factors can put you at greater risk for being struck. I presume those “factors” could include rain, metal kettlebells and holding them above your heads in open parking lots with tall steel light poles. That was the scene at today’s Forge BD.

Mark Twain said “the trouble ain’t that there are too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.” Following that logic, Bill Watterson later noted, “it’s hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.”

It was this type thinking that must have motivated Saluki and Honeypot to head for the hills as the weather bore down upon us. I hope they spent their time in flight asking for forgiveness for whatever sins might be troubling them. In fairness, Saluki first mentioned at least 3 times that maybe we should head for cover. When his entreaties went unheeded, he followed his conscience and ran away like he stole something. I suppose Honeypot followed Saluki’s conscience too, eager to get home and check on the hives.

As for the rest of the Pax, our only concession to the elements was Lizard King’s order to move the BD under a (metal) awning to shield us from the rain and, presumably, increase our meager chances of being electrocuted. During this brief transition, Grylls implored us to run faster so the lightning couldn’t get us. Safely relocated, we spent the last 12 minutes in a slightly modified effort.

Rewinding to an earlier time, we kicked off the 5:30 BD with a mosey around the parking lot, followed by a reminder of F3’s 5 core principles and quick sets of side straddle hops, imperial walkers and weed pickers. Then, it was straight into:

THE THANG

YHC created 10 KB cards and 10 movement/running cards. Each KB card had a corresponding 3 set number of reps (descending each time) and each movement/running card described an action to perform between KB sets. Each round, one Pax picked two cards at random to create the next 5 minutes’ work. The cards were:

KB cards

Curls
Tricep extensions
Doddys (on knees, raise KB from waist, straight armed, overhead)
BB sit ups with KB
Overhead press
KB Swings
Straight legged deadlifts
Squats
Thrusters
Pull throughs

Movement cards (out to a spot in the lot/return to KB)

Run/run
Bernie Sanders/run
Farmer carry/Farmer carry
Lunge walk/run
Bear crawl/run
Crawl bear/run
Overhead carry
High knees/run
Run/run
High knees/skip

During the rounds, Doddy explained some physics to YHC and Nesquick. We were skeptical but he is an engineer. Prior to fleeing the scene, Saluki was momentarily triggered at the sound of the word “kodiak.” Tiny Tat briefly sang along to a wonderful remake of Ice Ice Baby and the rest of the crowd amiably chittered and chattered. The playlist was typically strong today, even including a new bubblegum pop song curated by YHC’s 11 year old daughter.

COT included a good word from 6th man Rembrandt and we ended with prayers for his daughter’s new adventures in California and for Mouth-to-Mouth’s pending knee surgery.

It was a memorable day at the Forge and an honor to battle together with these men.