Day: May 4, 2024

The classic Coconut Horse loop was vacant again, as we had 4 ruckers and a modified route runner at the Horse this morning.  With race season over after yesterday’s Tobacco Road Relay, I guess the runners are all licking their wounds (YHC included).

QSource today was on “The Law of the Process” from John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, and there were a lot of good takes.  Whoopee and Defib joined choosing to give the legs a break after a long day running the day before.  Key points from the chapter:

• Investing in growth is a daily process, and we don’t get 50 year results in 50 minutes
• Events are great, but processes are transformational
• Teddy Roosevelt may have had the biggest stones.  Once, he was shot prior to a speech, but insisted on delivering the one-hour speech with a broken rib and a bullet in his chest.
• To grow leaders in your organization, find opportunities to lead in small ways.  As they show their capable, give them greater opportunities.
• Consistency is the key

One lesson that showed up again that always seems to hit home is about being prepared.  As quoted in the book from Benjamin Disraeli, “The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his time when it comes.”  But another quote from Joe Frazier with a different spin is the one that got to me today:

“You can map out a fight plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, you’re down to your reflexes.  That’s where your road work shows.  If you cheated on that in the dark of the morning, you’re getting found out now under the bright lights.”

See those “Bright Light” moments are coming, and who we are in The Gloom, and on a Tuesday afternoon at work, or a Sunday evening with our families, all of that stuff matters.  It’s not a pressure, so much as an urgency.  Because if we’re men of action and we don’t cheat or take the easy way out, we’ll be as ready as we can be for our time when it comes.

We have to give our reflexes a fighting shot of getting us through in bright light situations, and it comes with preparation.  Sometimes, like a relay or a job interview or our kids leaving to go off to college, we get some warning about when our time is coming.  We’d be foolish or short-sighted to be unprepared in these situations, and yet it happens because our lives are so full.  A lot of times though, we don’t get to know when the action is going to start and the bright lights shine on us.  With preparation through hard work, building and supporting others, and a little bit of faith, we can get through.

The connections and clarity from being a part of a group that cares about how we’re all living are so valuable to me.  I appreciate all of your support.

Yabba Dabba Doo

The movie Goonies is a 1985 kids movie that became a cult classic and remains one of the most watched movies of all time.  Without spoiling it (for our Nantan) its about a group of kids with big imaginations, its about wonder, its about taking on seemingly impossible tasks and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.  In short its about making the impossible seem possible.  Over the years the pax of F3 Gastonia have taken on seemingly impossible tasks such as the blue ridge relay, marathons, a “Moron”, and multiple runnings of the Mortimer.  But as Whoopee said however, this was at least in the top 15 of stupid things he has done in his 54 years (that’s no small feat).

With a name like the Goonie and with pax of all levels of fitness I was tasked with coming up with a challenging Completely Stupid And Utterly Pointless event.   To entice (read coerce) participation, YHC put out on slack a somewhat cryptic / brief description of this event 2 months ago that described a 10+ mile ruck with the catch of starting at the ungodly hour of 3am.  The idea was that just about anyone who posts regularly can ruck 10 miles but only someone who “gets” F3 would wake up at 2 am to be ready to ruck for nearly 4 hours.

Sure enough 23 pax answered the call this morning not really knowing much more about what was in store except a ruck and a 3am start – talk about blind faith.  When I discussed this earlier in the week with some pax who were on the fence (Timeframe) it became clear that the “sacrifice” of posting was in the pax best interest.  It was about making tough choices – like sacrificing beers on Friday night for exercise on Saturday morning.  It was about being there for new guys who have never done a CSAUP.  And just as most difficult/challenging tasks in life are,  you may not like the work you put in at the time, but in the end you are glad you did.

As I pulled in the parking lot at 2:40am there were already 3 pax there waiting including Bed Pan, Roscoe and BOS.  Some pax just can’t get enough.  Over the next 20 mins 19 more pax came in (some hot) and one a little late who was “misled” by some chatter on Slack into thinking it was 3:30 start – Without mentioning names the Comz Q seems to have some trouble with comz and had to play catch up.  At 3am sharp YHC handed out t-shirts to those who arrived early and began to explain what to expect.  But first the price of admission was 5 “ruckees” OYO.

The thang:

The pax would be split up into groups of 5 with each group receiving a coupon that they would be responsible for bringing along the route.  There would be 4 pain stations along the way with exercises to be performed.  The route would take the pax from the Schiele to Advanced Autoparts on New Hope for the first pain station.  There the pax would take off the ruck and use them to do 50 overhead presses, 100 curls and 150 squats. Next ruck to Publix for 4 corners but first repeat the exercises from last station.  Yes the exercises would stack as we moved from one station to the next, a real crowd pleaser as the morning wore on.  Next ruck to Pelicans for the same exercises plus de-escalating four corners.  The four corners consisted of escalating 10 merkins, 20 American hammers, 30 Big Boys, and 40 Flutters followed by de-escalating the exercises at each corner.  That set off some mumble chatter about ab work and number of reps, how great the Q was etc.   Finally we moseyed to greenway where an Easter egg was waiting.  Near the Garrison tunnel we got into the creek ankle deep (that’s balls deep to Tiger and me) to cool off and do 10 Merkins, 10 LBCs and 10 SSH.  Although the water wasn’t particularly cold it tasted pretty nasty.  Again lots of mumble chatter – something about Chlamydia or urine – I couldn’t tell with the sound of the rushing water but I’m sure they were complimenting me on finding such a picturesque spot to cool off.   Adding wet clothes to blistering feet and bums was a real crowd pleaser.  Most were thankful we were almost back to the Schiele at this point.  Finally we arrived at the last pain station – Lineberger park, where YHC had to Omaha and called 11s with shoulder taps and LBCs without stacking the previous exercises so we could make it back on time for Whoopee’s pain lab Q.

When all as said and done we covered just over 11 miles, no one died, no one quit, no one smashed their block along the way in frustration and most seemed to enjoy at least parts of the event. But most importantly everyone grew.

The 23 pax who completed the CSAUP got to know their fellow pax a little better by collectively suffering through a 4 hour ruck/bootcamp and in the end will take this experience and memory with them to make future life obstacles just a little easier.  And like Whoopee said we do these things for not only for ourselves but also for our fellow man. (Iron sharpens Iron! Prov 27:17.)  My sincere thanks to all who made this one of  the most memorable events in my 9 years in F3.

Until next time

Defib out