If you haven’t noticed, there’s another web site that is, for want of a better word, a ‘sister’ site to this. It’s the daily life of my partner and co-conspirator, Steve. His site is www.helpafatguyout.com. He is who I was about 8 years ago. As you can see from the photos (sorry about the poor quality) I was packing some tonnage back in the 90’ies. And then there’s that photo of me crossing the finish line of the California Ironman in 2001. Yes, that’s how long I was out on the course. FYI the race is a 2.4 mile ocean swim, 112 mile bike ride rounded out with a 26.2 mile run.
Whenever the subject of the Ironman comes up everybody jumps to the conclusion that I’m an athlete because I finished it. I’m not going to disagree that I’m not somewhat athletically blessed. I played a relatively competitive level of rugby and was proficient in lots of sports growing up as a kid. But athleticism didn’t help me when, for charity, I ran from San Diego to Phoenix in 18 days. 16 of those days I covered a marathon each day. The last 2 days, for promotional purposes were half marathons. The same goes for the Ironman. It’s not athleticism that gets you across the finish line.
When someone asks me why or how I want from a chubby chappy to a marathoner, to an Ironman to an ultra marathoner, the only response I can give is because I realized that This is Not a Practice Life. And spending my mortal existence firmly ensconced in my comfort zone wasn’t what god had planned for me. So one day I looked in the mirror at what can only be described as an amorphous mass (yes, I was so fat that I couldn’t see either my Johnson or my feet if I tilted my chins down to the ground) and asked those 6 spine chilling words. “How is That Working For You?”
Suffice to say that I finally answered in the negative. Because I know that I constantly quizzed myself over who I was being with this very short time we have on earth. And that was the beginning of the end for me. I realized that I’d been out of balance. Every day was my birthday and every month was my birthday month. Until I realized I was killing myself! I was constantly uncomfortable. Clothes either didn’t fit or looked stupid if I did wear them (that’s for you guys that don’t wear ties any more because you can’t button your shirt up). I sprained the hinges on my car door because I had to use it to pull myself out. And my fiancé forgot to tell me that she was fooling around with some guy at work! Go figure….oh, we never got married…I just went on a week long binge in Vegas instead!!
And now here I am. Doing my best to motivate anyone and everyone to get the most out of their life as possible without coming across as an arrogant dick who knows it all! But in some respects I’m qualified to tell most people what the need to do to get into the shape that they want to be in. I’m a personal trainer through NASM. I’m qualified to teach spin. I’ve got coaching experience in all kinds of sports. More importantly though, I’ve been where most people have been and done what most have done. And I’m now in the best shape of my life. Which is where I want you to be too. Let me know what it is that I can do to get you there.
Mel