Pi Day

Pi Day

QIC: Cruiser

Date: 3/14/26

PAX: Subfloor, Head Hunter, Zima, Van Gogh, Ziggy, Dr Toot, Cruiser

Warm-o-rama followed the digits of Pi:

3 Burpees (for the PAX poor behavior)
14 SSH
15 Hillbillies
9 Arm Swirly Things/Thing Swirly Arms
3 Abe Vigodas
14 OH Claps
15 Michael Phelps

Quickly the MC started wondering about the playlist. The Pax began guessing what Pi-themed musical genius YHC had selected.

Suggestions included:

• American Pie on repeat

• The American Pie soundtrack

Unfortunately, they were all wrong.

The morning soundtrack was P.I. (M.P.) by 50 Cent, and the rest of the workout was powered by the Spotify radio spawned from that masterpiece.

The Thang

Part 1 – The NASA Pi Challenge

Blocks were moseyed out to the parking lot where the Pax learned a few Pi facts.

The world record for memorizing digits of Pi belongs to Rajveer Meena, who recited 70,000 digits from memory in 2015, taking 9 hours and 27 minutes.

Surely the Pax could manage a much smaller task.

They were given 1 minute to recall the 15 digits of Pi used by NASA for extremely precise calculations:

3.14159265358979

NASA states 15 digits of Pi is enough to calculate the circumference of the universe to within the width of a proton (according to Chat GPT)

The Pax nailed it. Which meant the easy Dora. The options were based on common fractions that are used to estimate Pi which are 7/22, 106/333 and 113/254.

7 Burpees
106 Overhead Press
113 Goblet Squats

The other option would have been 22, 333 and 354 reps.

Part 2 – The Pilish Part

Next came a workout inspired by the Pi-based writing style known as Pilish where the length of every word follows the digits of Pi.

Author Mike Keith wrote a novel titled Not a Wake,

Example:

“Now I fall a tired suburban in liquid under the trees.”

Word lengths follow: 3-1-4-1-5-9…

So naturally the Pax followed the digits with exercises:

3 – CDD (Carolina Dry Docks)
1 – X (Jump)
4 – LBCs
1 – V (Up)
5 – Burpy
9 – WMD Merkins

The rep scheme came from ancient Pi estimates.

Over 3500 year ago, using sticks and ropes the Babylonians approximated Pi as 3.125, so:

31 CDD
25 X (Jumps)

The Egyptians estimated Pi as 3.1605, so:

31 LBCs
6 V (Ups)
0 Burpys
5 WMD Merkins

After each round the Pax ran a lap around the parking lot.

We completed 3.14 rounds.

The 0.14 consisted of another round of Carolina Dry Docks, much to Zima’s chagrin.

A little-known fact:
Most people would rather hear someone recite 70,000 digits of Pi than listen to Zima critique Carolina Dry Dock form.

Part 3 – Archimedes Polygon

Finally, we honored Archimedes, who in about 250 BC estimated Pi by calculating the perimeters of polygons drawn inside and outside a circle.

He started with 6 sides and kept doubling:

6 → 12 → 24 → 48 → 96

YHC attempted to replicate this mathematically elegant approach… but instead it turned into something resembling a zig-zag disaster that was definitely not a polygon. We did 6 reps of the first exercises at station 1, 12 reps of the exercise at station 2, 24 at station 3 and so on. Round 2 was the first and second exercise. Round three was going to be 3 exercises, but we were running out of time so Omaha to only the third exercise. The exercises were as follows

Station 1 – 6 reps

Lt Dans (with block)

Blockees

Thrusters

Station 2 – 12 reps

Goblet Squats

Iron Mikes (DC)

Apolo Ohno

Station 3- 24 reps

Merkins

Irkins

Derkins

Station 4 – 48 reps

American Hammers (SC)

Step ups (SC)

Dips

Station 5 – 96 reps

Low Flutter (SC)

Mountain Climbers (SC)

Plank (in seconds)

We ran out of time for the Dips and Plank

Blocks were returned and that was time.

NMM

• Zima complained about everyone’s form exactly as expected, especially during CDD

• Van Gogh was concerned that blasting a 50 cent P.I.M.P. inspired playlist outside the discipline center might result in our removal from the property, so he kept the speaker with us instead of leaving it near the discipline center.

• Ziggy lives up to his reputation as the most interesting man in the world. Go to coffeteria with him sometime and just sit and listen to him talk.

• Dr. Toot: If you are wondering, yes they are real and they are spectacular. He also lived up to his name and kept blasting everyone.
• Headhunter dominated the workout even after completing Murph workout earlier. I want to know what he is on and use it too.
• Subfloor suggested a far superior playlist idea involving songs lasting exactly 3 minutes and 14 seconds. We will likely steal that idea next year and my guess is he wins creativity at Marchilament on Tuesday.
• Everyone was pretty spot on as to which parts of the workout were AI assisted (all the facts) and those that YHC came up with on his own (50 cent playlist, a poorly planned zig zag pattern that was inspired by a polygon<-what even is that?)

COT

YHC closed with a short reflection inspired by an interview with Ben Sasse about redeeming the time and using the limited hours we have wisely. Unlike Pi, our time does not go on forever so live in the moment and cherish the time you have. If I only had 24 hours left, I’d still be out in the gloom early with this group of men. I’m thankful for each one. If you have an hour I would recommend taking the time to listen to the interview here : https://youtu.be/V8MO-i3CBZQ?si=fd-tuR84e4-BrMGu