Weather: Foggy, 60’ish. A+ Gloom.
Not sure when I made the decision to get an extra lap of WW5K in, but I arrived to the site of World’s Worst 5K an hour early to knock it out.
Of course, HBC’s car was already there which means that he was already out there in the gloom doing some Extra Credit running himself. I can’t sneak nothing by that dude.
Slowly headed up Davis Cove Road. At the top, I spy a headlamp that was roughly 4′ feet above the road grade so I knew it was my favorite goat finishing up his pre-run. Sure enough, it was HBC. He turns around and we run for about 0.25 mile together, chat it up, and he peels off in the other direction to ‘get some water’. I continue towards the bottom of Chigger Ridge, turn around and head back up that sucker.
As I’m at the top of CR, a thought occurs to me: 6 years ago, there would have been exactly a 0.00% chance that I would consider running WW5K. Nada. Zee. Ro. While there are lots of brothers in F3 that I can thank for pushing me to do stupid stuff like this, there are 2 High Impact Men that I owe a huge debt to. One is the guy that was currently somewhere out there on the course (HBC) and the other is the guy that started the WW5K (Abraham).
Abraham pushed me off the cliff. When I was on top of that cliff, I was fat, happy, and full of BS. Abe knew that I could be a better man. He’s the one that saw my half dead body on the Palmetto 200, took zero pity on me, and said “you can do better”. He’s the one that got me to run my first BRR and that was even after I told him “not just no, but Hell No”. I’m not sure how it happened, but he got me to start pushing my rock up that hill and I haven’t looked back since.
HBC saw me falling off that cliff and felt that I needed a kick in the shorts. When I bragged to him about how I smoked my Candyland legs on BRR, he half heartedly congratulated me and then said “what’s next, brother?” Then he got me to join the Smoky Mtn Relay team. When we were done, he said “what’s next brother?” Later he took me to Table Rock, Hawksbill, and South Mountain and challenged me to run all of them. Next thing I know, I’m running a 1/2 marathon in the woods. When that’s over, I got a pat on the back and a cold one from HBC, then he says “what’s next, brother?”. Then I’m out there doing a dang 50K.
This is how F3 works. We push each other to be better. We want you to get better. Go lead out front. Go push a rock. Then give one to someone else so they can push it. Then have someone hold you accountable for your actions. It starts with your VQ (what’s next?). Then you take on Site Q responsibilities (what’s next?); or maybe you’re the Q of Dad’s Camp. It just snowballs from there. So I challenge you to ask yourself, What’s Next? And who are You pushing to get better? Give it away men.
That reminds me. As of today, we do not have a 2020 BRR team captain. Is that what’s next for you? Are you ready to step up and lead? There are a handful of additional opportunities for you. Just ask: 828-324-4413
What’s next?
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