Last Saturday, I had the great privilege to lead alongside Kenyan on his VQ at the Deep. As his F3 name suggests, Kenyan is a runner. But he hasn’t always been one (More on that in a bit).

The Kenyan warm-up and beat down:
Side-Straddle Hops
Windmill
Hillbilly Walkers
American Hammers
Freddy Mercurys
Pivot Plank Merkins
Toe Squats

Then we moseyed across the street to the brand-spanking new school’s track for the running portion of the program.

Before we began, Kenyan gave some great personal testimony.

Kenyan wasn’t born a runner. In fact, he hated running. But his pastor introduced a “Couch to 5K” program. By his own account, he wasn’t in the greatest shape, didn’t eat the healthiest stuff. So he decided to give it a go. In a matter of weeks, he’d lost significant amount of weight and was hooked. Then, his pastor called him and let him know about an upcoming marathon, and that Kenyan was “voluntold” he was going to run it. Pastor sent a training program and, to make a long story short, Kenyan ran that marathon, and is currently training for NUMBER 6. (Author’s note: This is a full six more marathons than I have run.) He used his personal journey to illustrate the power of our mind and positive thinking. If you think you can do something, chances are, you can. If you doubt you can, you’ve already failed. Aye!

The Merkin Mile Challenge
Cones at 11 and 5 o’clock on the oval track marked the merkin stations
Ten merkins at the first set, run, 10 merkins at the second set, run
Repeat for 10 full minutes. Intense. But, you know what? We all pushed ourselves and finished strong.

Then Kenyan handed off the second half to me.

I took my inspiration from a CSPAN Q at The Swamp. Thanks, CSPAN!

Set up included a dozen parking spaces (two rows of six, back to back), each with an exercise and the number of reps in sidewalk chalk. Each PAX chooses a parking spot, completes the prescribed exercise, then runs a lap around the parking lot, returning and progressing to the next exercise in the sequence. Go until C.O.T.

The Thang:

Merkins x 20
Sumo Squats x 20
Mountain Climbers x 20
Diamond Merkins x 20
LBCs x 20
Flying Squirrels x 10
Merkins x 20
Imperial Walkers x 20
Peter Parkers x 20
Freddy Mercurys x 20
Carolina Dry Docks x 20
Flying Squirrels x 10

At C.O.T., I spoke a bit about this month’s theme of forgiveness. My biggest challenge is not the forgiving of others. It’s being forgiving of myself. I challenged us all to offer ourselves the same grace we give others. We all fall short. We all make mistakes. But, the hope is we learn from them and become better men.

Prayers: for teachers and students as they return to school, for Royale’s Dad, for helping us grow as fathers, husbands and friends.