Sunday Story…What (it took)

When I was coming up in high school wrestling there was a guy named Dan Gable out of Iowa who won the 1972 Olympic gold medal. Legend has it that he lived by this credo…”7 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 7 years. That’s what it took.” So what has it taken to get my 57 year old rear to the 2014 CrossFit Games?

Aside from the obvious dedication and commitment over the last year:
Workouts:
I have had workouts scheduled at least 5 of every 7 days and frequently 6 out of 7.
My workouts usually take over an hour and as much as 2 hours. This doesn’t include warm up or cool down.
I spend 3 or 4 hours a week on “mobility” work (and this isn’t enough!)
I have had dedicated Olympic lifting sessions once a week for the first 6 months and twice a week for the last 6 months.
My coach(es) have me doing specific stability and mobility exercises.

For recovery:
I visit an Active release doctor once a week.
I have been doing cryotherapy (go to http://www.cryousa.com/ for more info) once a week or so since February.
I try to sleep 7-9 hours every night…successfully most of the time.

Diet:
I eat real natural food 99% of the time. In the last 6 months or so I have added more potatoes and white rice than in the last 2 or 3 years. In some circles that would not be “paleo”. I do use whey protein from SFH (100% grassfed), fish oil (9 grams a day), branched chain amino acids (BCAA), as well as several other supplements from different natural products companies. These products come recommended to me by people I know and trust (Robb Wolf, Stephen Cherniske) and are designed to aid in recovery and avoid possible dietary deficiencies based on my out of sight activity level.

I have and continue to experience several injuries over the last year. None of them have been severe enough to stop me or slow my activity significantly. In this regard I have been very fortunate but I am skirting the edge of disaster on this one. That is why the mobility, ART, and other recovery practices are so important.

My social life is fairly non-existent. I eat, sleep, and train. I prepare all my food a week at a time. I think about my training or programming for the athletes I coach. This has been an all encompassing journey… a quest, if you will. There have been times I wondered if it was worth it. There have been times when I wanted to quit, to stop, to call CJ Martin and tell him I was out. There are still days when I wonder if I am good enough, that I am going to show up in Los Angeles in 6 weeks and get laughed out of the stadium. Then I get reminded of how far I have come…all the things I can do today…better, faster, longer…that I could not do just a few months ago.

I wouldn’t trade all of the pain and struggle of the last 12 months for anything. It has been a transformative and amazing metamorphosis. And I would do it again, even if I wasn’t going to the Games in a few weeks.

So, to all of you reading this and all the things I write, Thanks for your support both publically and privately, and expressed and implied. If you want to start your journey to personal excellence, your journey to extraordinary, drop me a line and we can start you down the path as well!

Namaste

John Mariotti
www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.martialartsnevada.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
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