Babinec was on Tioman Island, a mountainous apostrophe of land 12 kilometers (7.44 miles) wide on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, near where his grandparents still resided. Nary a car passed by Babinec as he ran on the only road he could find.
"(The wind) blew so hard it was blowing coconuts out of the trees," the Riverview senior said. "They're cracking on the streets, and I'm just looking up on my run trying to not hit these coconuts."
Months later, Babinec's runs are drier, but no less daunting.
Tuesday evening, sandwiched between his 8-mile workout at Riverview and his Boy Scout meeting, Babinec did three 1-mile repeats -- at five-minute splits -- before logging a series of 300-meter uphill runs carrying an SUV tire attached to a neck harness.
The payoff: Babinec's times are dropping like coconuts.
"And the thing is, we're training through all these races," said Steve Dunn, proprietor of a Lithia running store and Babinec's personal coach. "We're not tapering for a race."
A year after his breakthrough junior season, Babinec -- an honor student on the cusp of earning Eagle Scout status -- is conquering mountains both Asian and figurative.
Two weekends ago, at the prestigious flrunners.com Invitational on a fast lakefront course in Titusville, he ran a school-record 15:57 to achieve a personal goal of beating Chamberlain state title hopeful Max del Monte, who finished a second behind.
Days later at a meet at Lennard, he won handily in 15:58 for his third first-place finish of the season.
About 90 minutes after dawn Saturday, he'll join dozens of other standout runners at the starting line of the Elite Boys race, the highlight event of the Little Everglades Pre-State Invitational in Dade City.
"I enjoy being fit," said Babinec, whose dad attended high school in Singapore while his paternal grandfather worked in the oil business in southeast Asia.
"Now that I'm a better runner than I was my freshman year, I like looking in the gym at our records and I like the idea of being the fastest person that's ever walked around here. It's really interesting to think of it that way."
The record likely will splatter once or twice more before the season ends. Babinec, a former soccer player who didn't begin running seriously until high school, says his goal is 15:30. Ironically, Dunn suggests his protege could go even faster -- if he'd slow down.
Babinec, who trains in socks but runs without them, says he's often barefoot off-campus. In addition to his scout pursuits, he skateboards, dives, and rides bikes and waves with nearly equal proficiency. After logging his personal-best time in Titusville, he went surfing in the Atlantic.
"For him to sit down and relax, we'll see what we can get out of the county (meet)," Dunn said.
If he complies by tapering before the postseason, Babinec should secure his first state berth. Last year, in the daunting Class 4A, Region 2 meet, he finished two spots from qualifying for state despite running a 16:08.
"I definitely want to just keep my head down, keep training hard, keep chipping away at my time," Babinec said. "Just to run in college, that's really my goal, and to go to states this year, finally."
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