and now... The rest of the story

Alright, so picking up where the last blog left off...

Workout Wednesday:
So on Wednesday I have the guys go through this cycle that combined body weight exercises with cardio. I kind of modeled off this personal training cycle that the wife used to go through before we got married. Here's what we did.

Keep in mind they do this with no break in between. They also have to do them on command and with correct form. If they break from the group in any way, I start over at zero.
First the guys get into position and do 25 push ups. Then they get with a partner and do 25 sit ups. After both partners go, they get into position and do 25 squat jumps. From there we line up at the goal line and the partners become groups 1 and 2. In the following exercises group one would go then, if they did it right, group 2 would go. First, 15 yards and back bear crawls. Second, 15 yards and back forward crab. Third, 15 and back duck walk.

After they finished, the group would go right back to push up position and we would cut down to 20 of each of the first exercises. Then go on to the last three just as before. Then with the time left we went on and did 15 of each. Only once did we ever get through all 3 cycles . It sounds like no big deal I know. But believe me, it aint easy. These young fellas were sweating it up and getting stronger all the time.

Throw Down Thursday:
On Thursday the guys would build on the score that their teams started getting on Tuesday. We would throw a bunch of different things at them from tug of war to pass and punt competitions. This was never really a tough day but the guys did have a forum to show off their new found strength and conditioning.

Football Friday:
Part reward for a tough week finished and part competition, on Friday we played touch football. This was their last opportunity for a team to get enough points to win for the week and get out of half the running on Marathon Monday.

Anyway so a long winded explanation sure, but I was really proud of this set up because it allowed me to mesh together a group of guys that others had had trouble with. All of a sudden instead of fighting to outdo each others' stupidity they were fighting together and working hard. They were taking responsibility for what they did and becoming faster and stronger in the mean time.

So where are we now on the coaching thing? Well who knows really. I've put in to be one of the coaches next year but nothing has been made official yet. I will say that I'm really excited that it's even a possibility. This year has shown me just how much I like the whole coaching thing. I also think I'm better at it than I am at most other things. So the long and short of it is that I hope I will be, I think I might be, so stay tuned to find out.

Last but not least: PROJECT THUNDER MAKER
Some of my regular readers that read about my teaching, coaching etc. may not know or care much about the following topic. But as work progresses, there will be updates.

So what is Project Thunder Maker? It's where you take and already beastly truck and simply... make it more beastly! Some of you may have never had the pleasure of encountering Green Thunder. I am sad for you. Here is a picture.

You can't read the sign in front of it, but it says "for low emissions vehicles only" haha. I'm pretty sure I've never talked about Green Thunder in the old blog o rama so here goes. It is a 1977 Ford F-150 with a 460 (7.5 Liter) V8. It's 4wheel drive, rides on 33" tires and currently has a bone stock drivetrain. From the very beginning, I have loved this awesome truck. Originally I bought it after a great deal of searching for something that could sort of fill a want for muscle bound motors and wrenches turning in the garage. I sought out this particular era of Ford since my dad had owned a '79 F150 with a 400 in it. Finding this truck was a dream come true and working on it has been a blast.

In the past year (I bought it in February of 08) I've done lots of little things to it. I've swapped out the power steering with the help of my dad. I've swapped out the carb for a 770 Truck Avenger with the help of my buddy Seth. And I've swapped out the weather stripping with the help of Miller High life.

But now with a little influx of cash, the real project Thunder Maker has begun.
To be honest the whole thing started with some leaky valve seals. These are things that keep the oil at the top of the engine from draining down into the combustion chamber. Since they were leaking, the motor was burning some oil. And as anyone who's ever hung out around Green Thunder when I start it up can tell you, it makes for a smelly and smokey show when the oil gets to burnin. So obviously this is an easy fix. $12 part, valve covers off and bang your done. But lets not over simplify something easy. Instead, lets make it difficult and fun!

With money in my pocket and big dreams for big horses, the project began. And what had started as a lowly valve seal replacement had now snowballed into a whole engine build! So I budgeted and started shopping.

Truthfully this project had been slowly in the works for sometime. This explains why I have headers, a Comp Cams Extreme 4x4 262 camshaft and a new MSD ignition setup all hanging out in my garage. But hey, I'd rather just say it started recently... makes me sound like more of a go getter. Anyway so here's how it's gone so far...

First I went ahead and got a good deal from Craig's on an engine hoist and stand. It was a monster drive to get it, but it was worth the 100 bucks or so that I saved over buying it new and boy does this thing perform! Nothing like having 2 tons of lifting power in your garage for a job like this.

Second, I found a shortblock+. I call it shortblock+ because most short blocks don't come with anything except a crank and pistons inside the block itself. This came with a weak cam as well as water, oil, fuel pumps. It also has a front sump pan on it which does me no good but it helped with transport. Anyway, I got this thing off Craigslist from a guy that had more money than sense but... that's a story that would take up too much space, and this story is running long already.

Anyway so the first step was getting it out of the truck. This process was hampered at first because the guy I got it from gave me the wrong bolt sizes on the back end.. like I said, no sense. Side note: Luckily he wasn't the one who built it. Instead it had actually been put together at a machine shop and bored 30 over. So now it's actually more like a 466. So when dad was in town over Easter, we finally managed to get the thing out of the truck and onto the stand.
















During the process I wound up getting some iron D0VE-C heads that had been throughly worked over and endowed with some massive Super Cobra Jet valves. We're talking 2.25 on the intake kids... that's manimal sized. With the help of my buddy Seth we got the new cam in and we've got it all set up to put the heads on. More on that soon...

Anyway we're really having some good times putting this thing together. I can't wait to get it in and put some power to the road. Although I have to say with this HEAVY artillery under hood, I kind of feel sorry for my back tires....

OVERHEARD @ WoRMS

Kid: Mr. I dare you to shave your beard on the last day of school...

Me: I'll think about it.

I think this leads me to ask you, the readers...
1. Have you ever seen me without it?
2. Should I?

Let me know on FB or on here what you think. Hopefully we're all caught up now and I can actually start doing daily updates again. I miss ya kids. Later.