So after leaving the sport, I’m coming back.
The long and short of it, I’ve failed at just about everything I’ve done in life and now I miss the things that make me happy.
It was the winter of 1996-1997 when I first thought of training for a triathlon. I was a lifeguard for the city of Boulder and had been for 4 years. I was guarding and chatting up people like Dave Scott, Wes Hobson, Chucky V, and Cam Widoff among others and I didn’t even know who they were. I met some new City of Boulder employees Siri Lindly and these crazy good looking brothers named Tim and Tony that all the female LG’s would swoon over when they walked in wearing their training suits.
During one of my breaks I was lifting weights with my sister. I was a total meathead @ 218lbs and 5%bf. She called me over to her stairmaster and pointed down to what she was reading. “Look here! Dave is in this magazine!” I glanced at a powerbar ad with Dave pumping his fist and read the accomplishments listed below him. I had looked up to Dave, but for a different reason than you might think.
My sister knew Dave from babysitting his kids. She knew him at the hot dad with the hot wife who never seemed to work and was always working out. To me Dave was just a really fit older guy. I admired that people were drawn to him and that my 19-year-old peers still got hot looking at his body. That was what I wanted. To be fit like that for life. To be so confident that it seeped form my pores without the arrogance that often accompanies it.
Put it all together with the passing of my father the year before from multiple health related issues and I was hooked. No more pushing weights trying to get bigger. No more partying on the weekends. I was going to become a triathlete. I didn’t know what that was; only that I was a damn good swimmer growing up and it had swimming in it.
They very next day I was at the library reading about what it is to be a triathlete. I still have not returned that book. That night I went on my first run. Just about 1.5 miles and I thought I was going to die. I saved up my pennies, put a down on a Klein bike in Niwot at Oil Me Bikes and jumped in the pool before my guarding shifts.
My initial goal was to reach a starting line as fit as I could and KNOW that there was nothing more that I could do to be more fit or faster than in that moment. To this day, I have not reached that goal. I’ve had a few good races here and there, but I’ve never even come close to being totally fit for any race. Never.
So I come full circle to where I am now. I have managed to have moderate success in sales making over 14k last month and I couldn’t be more unhappy. To put it mildly, I hate being me right now. I have managed to gain 30lbs of fat and ruin some great things in my life. So I am coming back.
I don’t know how I’m going to manage this. It very well may cost me my fiancé and my job, but I have to do it. I’m only 29 years old and I can’t see living like this any longer.
Yesterday, I bought a mountain bike. Today I am getting the first parts for a road bike. Tomorrow I will drop the bomb on my fiancé and see where the parts of my life land.
Wish me luck, though I don’t believe in it. Pray for me, though I’m not religious. And if you see me training or racing, strike up a conversation or just give me that nod we all know that says, “I hope you brought your A game, cause its ON!”
The long and short of it, I’ve failed at just about everything I’ve done in life and now I miss the things that make me happy.
It was the winter of 1996-1997 when I first thought of training for a triathlon. I was a lifeguard for the city of Boulder and had been for 4 years. I was guarding and chatting up people like Dave Scott, Wes Hobson, Chucky V, and Cam Widoff among others and I didn’t even know who they were. I met some new City of Boulder employees Siri Lindly and these crazy good looking brothers named Tim and Tony that all the female LG’s would swoon over when they walked in wearing their training suits.
During one of my breaks I was lifting weights with my sister. I was a total meathead @ 218lbs and 5%bf. She called me over to her stairmaster and pointed down to what she was reading. “Look here! Dave is in this magazine!” I glanced at a powerbar ad with Dave pumping his fist and read the accomplishments listed below him. I had looked up to Dave, but for a different reason than you might think.
My sister knew Dave from babysitting his kids. She knew him at the hot dad with the hot wife who never seemed to work and was always working out. To me Dave was just a really fit older guy. I admired that people were drawn to him and that my 19-year-old peers still got hot looking at his body. That was what I wanted. To be fit like that for life. To be so confident that it seeped form my pores without the arrogance that often accompanies it.
Put it all together with the passing of my father the year before from multiple health related issues and I was hooked. No more pushing weights trying to get bigger. No more partying on the weekends. I was going to become a triathlete. I didn’t know what that was; only that I was a damn good swimmer growing up and it had swimming in it.
They very next day I was at the library reading about what it is to be a triathlete. I still have not returned that book. That night I went on my first run. Just about 1.5 miles and I thought I was going to die. I saved up my pennies, put a down on a Klein bike in Niwot at Oil Me Bikes and jumped in the pool before my guarding shifts.
My initial goal was to reach a starting line as fit as I could and KNOW that there was nothing more that I could do to be more fit or faster than in that moment. To this day, I have not reached that goal. I’ve had a few good races here and there, but I’ve never even come close to being totally fit for any race. Never.
So I come full circle to where I am now. I have managed to have moderate success in sales making over 14k last month and I couldn’t be more unhappy. To put it mildly, I hate being me right now. I have managed to gain 30lbs of fat and ruin some great things in my life. So I am coming back.
I don’t know how I’m going to manage this. It very well may cost me my fiancé and my job, but I have to do it. I’m only 29 years old and I can’t see living like this any longer.
Yesterday, I bought a mountain bike. Today I am getting the first parts for a road bike. Tomorrow I will drop the bomb on my fiancé and see where the parts of my life land.
Wish me luck, though I don’t believe in it. Pray for me, though I’m not religious. And if you see me training or racing, strike up a conversation or just give me that nod we all know that says, “I hope you brought your A game, cause its ON!”