Do you like bacon? You probably do. It is good by itself and makes other foods better by its addition. Bacon wrapped steaks, baked beans with bacon, bacon bits in salad and if you are lucky bacon slices on salad. Bacon, egg and cheese biscuits. Bacon burgers. I’ve had chocolate covered bacon (don’t knock it until you try it) and of course eggs and bacon for breakfast. Bacon adds a great flavor to the foods we eat and you get excited when you hear that bacon is being added to a dish you love. Everyone loves to see bacon coming.
Do people love to see you coming? When you walk into a room do people say “Oh good! There is _____”?

Be the Bacon! Be the ingredient that adds flavor to those around you. Have the pleasant demeanor that people like to see walk in the door. If you are like me, this is easier at work or at F3 where we are “on our best behavior”. It is harder when we are at home with our Ms and 2.0s. We tend to relax our personal discipline and let our ugly selves show to those we love most. So Be the Bacon especially at home.

*I highly recommend the F3 Podcast “43 feet” that national Nantan Dredd and Dark Helmet record once a week. You can find it by opening the podcast app on your phone and search for F3 (or on SoundCloud). Subscribe and in that feed you will also get the weekly F3 Roundtable call hosted by CSPAN. You will get thoughts like the above and a bunch of non-sense and laughter. For free! The podcast will be following along with the QSource study points as we go though it this year. What is QSource you ask?  Read on!

Plant, Serve and Grow men’s small Workout Groups in order to invigorate male Community Leadership.

There are 5 main topic areas with weekly lessons under each area:

1. Foundation
2. The First Quadrant: Get Right
3. The Second Quadrant: Live Right
4. The Third Quadrant: Lead Right
5. The Forth Quadrant: Leave Right

The materials are located in the F3Alpha Slack channel “3rd F”. There you will find the entire guide “The QSource.Final (2018).pdf”. Download it and join a group or start one in your area. If you want to lead a group there are additional materials in that channel: QSource Deck PowerPoint to use at the meetings and a file “Tips for QSource Leader”.

Our first group meets Fridays at Chick-fil-a at the Avalon from 0630-0700. Let me know if you get a group started or if your regular 3^rd F group joins in on this study.

— Ha-ha

For the past six months, my experience in F3 Nation has been tremendously impactful: I now wake up at 5am each morning; I am in the best shape of my life; and I have made authentic friendships with a great group of guys that are truly vested in encouraging me to be a better man.

What I joined on a hot and humid summer morning has turned out to be more than just an early morning workout group. F3 (which stands for Fitness, Fellowship, and Faith), has helped me realize that some of those things I’d told myself over the years were plain simply – lies!

So, if you also have made statements about yourself that place limits on what you can or cannot do, I beseech you to consider that they too may be lies. My encouragement to you is to step out of your day-to-day rut, and seek out people that will challenge you to become a better version of yourself. Also, take strides overcome the inner voice that is content with you staying where you are – push yourself and grow!

P.S. If you’re in North Atlanta, Alpharetta area, I welcome you to join us on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5:15am in East Roswell Park. It may well be the impetus for you to unleash the greatness in you. As you push yourself, it may not get easier but you will definitely get stronger – physically, mentally and spiritually!

Future Expansion Opportunities

• We have an Augusta, GA F3 PAX, Squeaky, moving to Lawrenceville and wants to start F3 over there. We will be looking to help him launch after he gets moved in and settled. Stay tuned.
• We have a group in Kennesaw that is being led by Delta, a PAX that moved down from Chattanooga, and they are looking to become official. We will soon be getting some clown cars together to help them get launched.
• We have a similar group in the Greensboro/Madison area that has been meeting but wants to become official. We will be traveling to help them get started on the official path as well.
• Tommy Boy from the Rubicon moved to Decatur and is fired up to start there.

These are all exciting opportunities for F3 in the greater Atlanta area we need to get behind ASAP! Someone went out on a limb to start the AO you enjoy. It’s time to pay it forward! Send Ha-ha a message if you are ready to help out and when we have a date he will let you all know.

CSAUP

Blue Ridge Relay, Sep 6-7:  5 PAX from Alpha participated in the Blue Ridge Relay last September and all 5 are all in to return! That should tell you something about the good time this is. Last year Mayhem, Turbine, Whiz, Lowes and Ha-ha all ran and had a blast!
What is the Blue Ridge Relay? I’m glad you asked! The BRR is a road running race from the VA/NC boarder to downtown Asheville, NC through the Blue Ridge Mountains. This race is all roads (don’t tell Mayhem that!) and is made up of 36 legs that average 5.5 miles each. There are 12 men on a team and you rotate through the runners for each leg so on a 12 man team that means you run 3 times with about 10 hours of rest between your runs. The legs range from “easy” to “hard” with a couple that are rated “Mountain Goat Hard”. We can arrange the legs to meet your skill level.
  
Although this is a “race” we are there for the fellowship. More than half of the 200 teams that participate are F3 and FiA teams. Even a few “F3iA” teams (mixed male/female teams). Just like our workouts, we leave no man behind. If you want to walk/run your legs, no problem! We are there to have fun!
The team is broken up into 2 vans with 6 guys in each van. The vans alternate between an “on course” van and a “rest” van. The rest van is free to get something to eat, sleep or take a dip in a creek. You actually spend very little time in a van as you just ride from exchange zone to exchange zone and then get out. The race starts on Friday morning in stages from 0530 till 1200 with slower teams starting first and the fastest teams starting last. The finish is in downtown Asheville with most teams coming in Saturday between 1100 and 1600. Yes, we run through the night but you get to sleep when your van is the rest van.
Registration for the BRR will fill up by April.  If interested let Ha-ha, Turbine, Lowes, Mayhem or Whiz know soon!

Palmetto 200 (P200), March 22-23:  The Palmetto 200 (P200) is the same format minus the mountains. It runs from Colombia, SC to Charleston, SC. Since there are no mountains it is a bit faster race. Registration for the P200 is still open now. If interested reach out to Ha-ha, Turbine, Lowes, Mayhem or Whiz.

Helenback Race Series, Apr 27:  Come and test your endurance in the mountains surrounding Helen, Ga and support the business partners of Bear who have developed an amazing, yet simple, event. Opportunities for a 5k, half-marathon, and a full marathon, but be prepared for a little extra credit on these trail runs…. A couple refreshments await you at the end.  Last year we had a great turn out of 9 runners from The Wreck. One full marathoner, who absolutely crushed it at 4:29:07, 5 half-marathoners, and 3 guys for the 5k.  A few of us Wreckers/Hogwallowers plan to make this a yearly CSAUP event! Come join us for a day in hell..en.  If interested connect with I-Beam.  http://www.helenbackraceseries.com/

GoRuck Star Course, Mar 9:  The 26.2 mile GoRuck Star Course is coming to Atlanta and it’s not too late to join your fellow AlphaRuckers who’ve formed a few teams and have begun training just last week. Up until Feb 7th registration will run you $85, after that it’s $95 and there doesn’t seem to be a cutoff date to join in. Look it up and read the background story as well as the format; it is sure to be a fun & challenging event (https://www.goruck.com/event-15006/). Training officially began the first week of January at The Widowmaker between the hours of 0530-0800. That morning, 10 PAX Rucked 10mi as a baseline for all to gauge where their training stands. It is encouraged, if not downright necessary, to add weekday Rucks on our own to increase our aerobic base and efficiency for loaded movement over ground. From now until the weekend of the event, AlphaRuck at The Widowmaker will be dedicated to Star Course training with a minimum 0530-0800 Rucking workout. But you don’t have to be registered or even be interested in the event to join us; AlphaRuck is ALWAYS open to everyone, and we always have a great Rucking time. Contact Dosido or Boomer for more information.

Spartan Atlanta Sprint, Apr 13:  Mud, obstacles, running, mud, a few burpees, mud and a bit of fire to cap it off … all the trimmings of a good challenge for a team of F3 HIMs.  Check it out at https://www.spartan.com/en/race/detail/4360/overview.

Several of our AO’s have Google Sheets Q sign-up rosters out on the F3 Alpha site under the Locations page.  Check them out at the link below and sign up to Q a day.

F3 Alpha Locations and Q Sheets

In the last 12 months the Alpha Region has:

• Spun off the Cherokee region, which has grown at a tremendous rate to where they now have 22 workouts a week.
• Added Saturday workouts at The Zoo and The Gladiator
• Added new Weekday AO options
  • The Gladiator
  • Galaxy
  • The Norseman
  • The Grindstone
  • Atlas
• The Hooch as added a non-running workout H0.0ch
• Hog Wallow has added a Thursday road run to go with the Saturday trail run

That is a total of 12 additional exercise events per week that were added this year in Alpha!  We also have 3rd F meetings for book/Bible studies going in Cumming, Johns Creek, Roswell and have now added a QSource group on Fridays in Alpharetta.

At our F3 Christmas party we honored those who stepped out and started new AOs this year with the Pillar award. It is these guys stepping out of their comfortable AOs and doing the harder thing to start a new AO that keeps F3 growing growing to the sad clowns of North Atlanta!

Pillar Awards

• Spandex and Scar for The Gladiator
• Nacho Libre for The Norseman
• Turbine and Chelsea for Galaxy
• Whiz for Grindstone
• I-Beam for Atlas
• The Body for The Zoo

Men, thank you all for your dedication to spreading F3 in North Atlanta. Because of the efforts of the HIMs in F3 Alpha we now have 29 workout events a week on the books with more coming! If I missed anyone please know it was not on purpose. It is hard to keep track of a star-fish organization!

Special thanks to 2^nd F central Q Miller Time for putting together an outstanding Christmas party on short notice and too late. The venue at Loyal Q was great and all who attended had a great time!

The Challenge
In May I challenged the men of Alpha to spread F3 across North Atlanta from I-75 to I-85. I thought it was a stretch and we would be lucky to get it done. But no! With your help and with the Mustard Seed F3 men moving into the Atlanta area we have 4 new opportunities to spread from Kennesaw to Lawrenceville, to Decatur and Madison! (See above section on Future Expansion Opportunities). Find where you can plug in and make it happen! Make time to attend a launch or Q at a new AO. Sad clowns, be prepared! F3 Alpha is coming for you!

— Ha-ha