Gut Check

As we made our way into Lexington, I was running on fumes. It had been nearly three weeks of barbecue, beer and catching up with friends. Late nights, little exercise and a diet that keeps cardiologists in business had left me lethargic and longing for a gym and some vegetables that weren’t deep fried.

The easy thing to do would have been to go through Lexington, stop at Lexington #1 for a chopped pork tray, call it a day and head to Richmond happy that I made it this far. But that’s like making it to the Final Four and being content not to win it all.

Yes, I was tired. Yes, I was near my breaking point and yes, I was oozing pork fat from my pores. The poor little button on my shorts could certainly vouch to that fact I could snap at any second, my body shutting down in a fat induced catatonic state.

Simply put, I was a crossroads and it was time to find out what I was made of. In the words of my high school basketball coach, this was “nut cutting time”. I had always wondered what that phrase actually meant, and I think I found out that day in Lexington.

I knew what had to be done, and I knew that if I were going to do it right, we couldn’t waste a second. When I originally mapped out the trip, I wanted to eat at four places in Lexington, and I was still determined to meet that goal.