Tales of Badassery
“She’s such a badass!”
“That dude is such a beast!”
These are snatches of phrases you can often hear during a workout. There are so many inspiring examples around us and it is easy to fall into awe when we recognize the qualities the we aspire to possess. We look at the people at the front of the stair line and watch them leap into the lead, scaling the stairs three at a time and wish we could be that fast. It’s easy to fall into the admiration game and only see the strongest and best among us. People do seemingly impossible things all the time when we get together, and we see the amazing handstands and the six minute pace runners ahead of us. There are so many inspirations within the tribe to look up to, from people running all kinds of distances to overcoming different kinds of life obstacles just to make it to a workout. I don’t think I’ve ever been surrounded by so much badassery in my life and every time I think I’ve seen the best, someone else takes it up to another level.
When I talk to these badasses that I naturally want to be as fast as, it’s funny that they talk about the people that they admire in the tribe. I remember talking to one of the faster people in the tribe about running and I mentioned how amazed I was by her time at the last half she crushed. Then she said
“Yeah, but I’ve never run a marathon before. It’s amazing when I see people running that distance and not just surviving it, but fucking smiling.”
Over the next few minutes we talked about what it takes to finish a marathon and how much she admired all the people she had seen on the tribe successfully finish one.
That’s a sentiment that often repeated around the tribe, even among the strongest and fastest that we admire so much. It’s a natural human sentiment to want to be stronger and better than we perceive ourselves to be and ignore that thing which others see in us. Unfortunately, it’s also a typical human emotion to see the obvious strengths and not the hidden obstacles that we push through to run those miles with the rest of the tribe.
There are tales of badassery all around us…
Like that badass who runs at least 2 miles from his apartment to wherever the NP workout is happening and still puts in a shit ton of effort when the workout starts. He never complains he just puts the work into the effort and stays with the effort as long as he can. Then when he’s given the final hugs, he turns and then runs those last few miles home. He does this for every workout and he’s a badass.
There’s the lady who hasn’t worked out in a long time, finally give this NP tribe thing a chance because her friend raved so much about it. So she comes to a workout and realizes that it’s hard, but she has fun so she decides to come again. And again…and again…and again…and again. Then we have a workout on Fedhill park and she somehow makes it up that massive hill and then the stairs. We were having people do burpees and she said…
“It’s hard for me to do burpees, but I’m going to do it. I’ll just modify it.”
Then we did five modified burpees together…
She’s a badass!
One of the most badass guys on the tribe put out a post a few days ago that surprised me. Things had gone wrong with his job for the past month, yet he been coming to all the workouts and still pushing himself to excel. He’s been doing his without a frown or scowl on his face. He’s giving out high fives and still being an example of how hard you can push yourself. I always thought he was a badass and he’s even more a badass to me now.
He’s definitely a badass!!
Or when you register for a triathlon even though the swim portion scares you shitless. Yet one tribe member did just that. He faced his fears about not surviving, because you know it could kill you. Crazily, he’s doing the darn thing again this weekend. I won’t mention his name, but it rhymes with Lick. Good Luck… you are a badass!!!
There are so many more badasses among us, like Joe who’s arm is not a 100% but he’ll do a pushup with the best of them, he’s a badass. Or those guys that show up every wednesday, you know, the ones that hit the snooze button, groan and put their feet on the ground and drag themselves to Rash field to workout at 5:30 and 6:30 to workout. You know, YOU! Yes, you are a badass, because you have decided to reach beyond yourself and try to get better at something you aren’t the best at. You are a badass for searching for the best version of yourself and even better for giving others a high five on their journey too.
All these stories are around us and we know that you see them all. We know that someone in the tribe inspires you to do more than your best. So we are asking you to nominate someone that has been a motivation for you in your tribe experience by wednesday. We have some bibs for the Baltimore Running Festival that we’ll give to the selected winners on Friday.
