My name is Rick, I am a new Champion and a 44 year old resident of Macomb County. I have been into health and fitness since 1999 when at the age of 31, I had a revelation while looking at vacation pictures of myself.
Weight lifting, walking, biking, running and swimming have all since become a permanent part of my life.
I have been a vegetarian since December 2010 and with navigating through a lifetime of health and fitness myths for the past thirteen years, my journey has been nothing short of fascinating.
Some history:
I had always been intrigued by the idea of someday competing in a triathlon, but I couldn’t swim. Finally at the age of 41, I took swimming lessons.
I will never forget my first day of lessons. It was the most frightening thing that I had ever experienced…and that was just walking into the pool area!
There was a balcony where all the parents sat watching their kids and of course it was loaded! Ugh!
My first lesson was a complete disaster! My instructor would later say that she was one hundred percent certain that I would never come back, but there I was the next week ready to try it again.
I kept at it for weeks getting better bit by tiny bit until my sixth class, that is when I finally overcame my life long fear of deep water.
They had to literally come pull me out of the deep end but not because I was drowning…it was because I was having the time of my life but the next class needed me out of the pool!
I thus became affectionately known as Peter Pan by my classmates.
That I became a runner is by far the most bizarre thing that has ever happened to me.
I had never run and like most new adult runners, I actually hated it. I had read somewhere last spring however that aspiring tri athletes should get a feel for the race day experience by running a small 5k. So I decided to give it a try and I have been running ever since!
I competed in fifteen events last year; 8-5k’s, 5-10k’s and 2 half marathons. All of which came in less than six months!
I am currently training for my first marathon June 23 in Charlevoix, MI. My most recent training run was 18 miles.
That I want to run that far and for that long still boggles my mind but I have come to accept the fact that I am a distance runner. I am not calling the marathon, the marathon is calling me.
My thirteen year commitment to health and fitness has been an inspiration to friends, coworkers, and relatives alike but I do not push my fitness beliefs onto others, choosing instead to let them come to me of their own free will.
Like many others, I was not always fit, so I can relate to the frustrations that are associated with the intentionally deceptive world of the infomercial and supplement industry.
Health and fitness is not something that happens in 90 days. It is a lifestyle change and that is the number one thing that needs to be stressed.
Ripped abs in six weeks is a complete fallacy. It takes years to get out of shape, and it’s going to take years to get into shape, but that is okay.
Because if you ask anyone who has successively made the transition from a sedentary lifestyle to an active one, they will most likely tell you that it is the journey that defines us. Not its completion.
Indeed.
