Deconstructed Burpee Ladder

Sparta, Salem, VA

Conditions: 44 deg. F, clear

PAX: Herschel, JV, Manti, Pipeline, Zebra

Q: Pipeline

There are two Q rules in F3:

  1. Always lie.
  2. Never tell the truth.

Pipeline had made ominous warnings on Slack about coupons prior to Tuesday morning, and he wasn’t entirely making it up. There were coupons in his car. The gun was loaded. But at 0530 hours sharp, or once JV unpacked his dry cleaning, whichever came first, the PAX headed out for the statue of Andrew Lewis at a light jog, coupon-free.

There was a thorough 29-point warmup in the glow of the ATM in front of the Salem Civic Center. Then the Thang was announced: just a few burpees, followed by a little running loop. No big deal. In fact, to make it even easier, we’d break down the burpees so we didn’t even have to do a whole one at once:

  1. You do a squat.
  2. You do an in-and-out (TWSS).
  3. You do a merkin.
  4. You do another in-and-out (TWSS).
  5. You do a squat jump to celebrate.

So, the PAX did 15 of each step and ran down to the street and back. There was plenty of time left, so we did 14 more. Then 13 more, at which point Pipeline told a story about Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his 13-year-old cousin when Jerry was 23. Next, we did 12, and Herschel made a rude comment about Pipeline and the Boy Scouts. Then 11. At 10, Pipeline said we could shorten the run to just a loop around the Andrew Lewis statue and the new LOVE sign because we’d already made sure the road was still there. With six to go, we headed back to the cars, stopping at light poles to do the final five, four, three, two and lastly, at the very end, because we hadn’t done an entire burpee yet, we did one burpee. There were a couple of minutes left. Zebra and Manti asked if we could do 15 complete burpees to demonstrate what we had learned, but Pipeline would not stand for it. Recover. Recover.

Pipeline took us away. An honor and a privilege!