November 4th, 2019 By Grandmaster

7 pax, four of whom were recovering from a Field Day defeat, gathered in a chilly morning in Kannapolis to get their run on. In all of the Field Day excitement, YHC had neglected to line up a Q for this morning’s cruise. Hoping that the soreness that was ravaging in my calves from the SSH hop competition would be gone by Monday morning, I took the Q. Well 4:45 rang out in the old Steve (iPhone) and I traversed what felt like a mile from my bed to the bathroom. Every step a was new lesson in what not knowing your limits can do to you. Whoever said “what you don’t know can’t hurt you” never faced up against Scooter in an endurance event.

Anyway, I somehow managed to get my warm clothes on and headed out to the AO thinking “I’ll just tell the guys to run somewhere and I’ll go for a nice walk.”  When I tried to run this by the Pax, FireChicken said “Nope, you going to run. Gotta work that lactic acid out of those muscles.” What I heard was more like “die you weak excuse for a runner!”
We set off on a lap of the Loop, NASCAR style. As we went the pain began to fade out or the pain receptors just gave up sending the message, not sure which one to be sure. But we eventually attained a descent pace and even had to extend the route to Ridge and down to The Loop again, and back to the AO. Backdraft, Gunny and I found that stopping was worse than running and worse yet was planting a foot to turn back for the six. But we survived and everyone got in between 4.5 and 4.79 miles, if you can believe FireChicken’s watch. Mine had decided that I should have stayed in bed and didn’t want to start working until 15 minutes into the run.

We arrived back at the AO and TheBurgh had to boogie, cooperate America waits for no one apparently, not even for a stud like him. We stretched a bit and formed up for COT. Prayers for missing Pax and that we will use the brotherhood F3 provides as we waddle through this race of life, like a guy who over estimated his ability to out hop the competition waddles around in the dark of the gloom. We all need the encouragement of some hot poultry to get us  going sometimes, especially when we don’t feel like we can make it across the street.

In HIS Service,

Grandmaster

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