Circle of Trust

COT

I’m gonna share a part of my life story that I normally don’t share, because I don’t like when people feel sorry for me. I think what we are doing with F3 is an important service to our community and example for our kids, this is why. 

On a beautiful weekend afternoon in the spring of 1994, my Dad and I went on a long mountain bike ride through some of the extensive trails that were accessible from where I grew up. I had recently upgraded from my huffy to a bigger bike with meaty tires, gears, and an odometer. I was now able to keep up with my dad, who at the time, was the same age as I am today. My dad had taken up biking in his thirties, presumably for the same reasons we are all here today – let’s just say there comes a time in life where you have to make a decision on what path you’re going to take with your health, especially when you’re a sugar addict like me. I knew my dad lost a lot of weight, had huge calves all the sudden and regularly went on 10+ mile bike rides which just blew my mind as a 7 yo.

That same night after this bike ride, around midnight out of the blue, my house erupted in panic as my dad had a very long, thrashing, grand mal seizure. We had no idea what was going on, and we thought for sure my dad was going to die that night. It turned out that he had a brain tumor, and this was the beginning of a long road of more seizures and treatments for many years to come. 

For the sake of keeping this short, I’m going to skip a lot of the story from here and just hit the highlights, or lowlights, rather. 7 years after that first seizure my dad passed away. A year after that, my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed two years later a week after I turned 18. 

I’ve heard it all – everything from “I’m so sorry” to “wow how did you not kill yourself”? Being from a small town, it became clear that I had this identity of “the kid who lost both parents”. Most people were surprised I didn’t end up a bum drinking or doing drugs as a teen. Luckily, my parents left a legacy. 

The legacy definitely wasn’t monetary, it was much more valuable – it was a treasure trove of hobbies and interests. Biking, fishing, hunting, camping, woodworking, shooting, and hard work. When I was 12, I put 1,600 miles on mountain bike in one summer. I didn’t realize until my thirties, these weren’t just hobbies and interests, these were my coping mechanisms. Without even knowing it for most of my life, these were my drugs that got me through – and they were all healthy. 

Now that my kids are 6 and 7, I realize I have to strike while the iron is hot and spend a lot more time with them to share my interests but also fan the flames of their own interests. The way I see it, this is a vaccine for adversity. 

My kids absolutely love when I show them F3 workouts that I do, especially the ones I planned for this boot camp. I have no doubt they would follow us around this AO and try every workout. They are attracted to it because they love being active and they can tell I have a lot of fun with it. 

I think the example we are setting by being involved in F3 is great for our kids and the communities we live in. Imagine the impact we can have on the future if we keep injecting this vaccine not only into our kids, as many men as we possibly can. 

Huge shout out to my boss and long-time mentor Gopher for administering the little red pill to me back in February. F3 is already filling a void that I had, and I’m only just getting started. Thank you.

Prayer requests made for all of the PAX working through injuries.