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| Me, the lovely wife, and Annabelle |
With regard to fitness, I grew up an overweight kid. I can completely sympathize with anyone else that had a similar childhood. Being picked on throughout elementary school was pretty rough. Some vivid memories include being weighed in with the rest of my classmates in the nurses office in third grade. It was the type of scale that is common to doctors offices with the 50lb and 1lb weight increments that you slide around until the lever is balanced. I remember how the 50lb indicator block stayed at the 50lb mark for all of my classmates and when it was my turn to hop on the scale, the nurse needed to shift the block to the 100lb mark. I was over 100lbs in 3rd grade. That might not seem too bad by today's obesity standards, but at the time I was the only one in my class that was that heavy. I also remember as a 5th grader, begging my mom for the Richard Simmons Deal-A-Meal program so that I could lose weight and fit in better. I don't want this to be a "poor me" story and I don't need anyone's sympathy. I truth I did have a pretty great childhood - wonderful, loving parents. I was fat and happy.
Late in junior high, I started some team sports (wrestling, football, track) and by high school I was a fairly normal weight for the first time in my life. In college, I had some awesome friends that I would weight-lift and exercise with and I was able to stay in pretty good shape. However, after college the weight slowly crept back on. Being in an established relationship is wonderful. There is always someone that is there for you and looking out for you, but it can definitely suppress fitness motivation. During the first 7 years of my relationship with my wife, my weight and fitness level was more or less a roller-coaster. By the time we got engaged, I was right around 215lbs. For the wedding, I whittled that down to 200lbs but in the years that followed, my weight made a slow and steady uphill climb to 230lbs. It was at this time that I decided I didn't want to be a fat guy any more. I began a religious year long running program with the goal of completing a marathon. It seemed like this plan would be a sure-fire way to get slim once again and for a while it worked. By race day I was down to about 210lbs. but I noticed that the majority of the weight loss happened in the first few months of training. In fact, my weight barely budged the last 3 months of training. I ran the Cleveland Marathon in 2006 and finished in a tortuous 5:19:41 or a 12:12 min/mile pace. After this goal was accomplished, I took a break from running for a bit and the pounds started creeping back on. Before things got out of hand, I signed up for some fitness classes that were run by a good friend, Joe Ventress. These classes were something akin to a boot camp style of workout...very high intensity...a lot of body weight resistance exercises...a lot of quickness and agility training. Using this approach and a low carbohydrate, high protein diet, the muscle flew on and the pounds flew off. It wasn't long before my weight was down 190lbs and I was feeling pretty good about myself. Through this training I continued with my running regime. I devised a new running related goal - to qualify for the Boston Marathon (goal time 3:10:59). Unfortunately Joe had to close down shop. This left me focusing once again only on running. With this as my primary source of training, my race times plateaued and I ended up stuck in the same place for a little over a year. That is when I determined I needed a change and I found a flier for Crossfit South Hills at my local running store. I started Crossfit training in May of 2010 and I absolutely love my Crossfit family - even if they are always dissing distance running ;p. After a busy year, the birth of a child and several new and exciting projects at work, I've decided to make a huge push towards my goal. I've set a time line for qualifying by my 35th birthday.
Mike
