Yeah it is true in high school my main sport was lacrosse. I ran one year of XC my freshman or sophmore year just because there where girls on the XC team and i needed an excuse/fall activity to convince my parents to let me stop playing football. i stopped when i realized i was close to being top seven and that meant i would have to be varsity and actually work out. I was not there to work out i wanted just to flirt. I probably would have ran well under 5:12 in high school but i never really tried. I was also a daily marijuana user throughout high school. The one time i ran a mile was when i bet my dad the day before thanksgiving I could go sub 5 minutes and went to some random track and ran 5:12 you dont have to belive any of that but it is true.
after high school I had no lacrosse scholorship and sport was a big part of my identity. i did not want to be the guy who goes to the gym just to go to the gym (because that guy is a dbag) so i took up triathalon. After my first olympic triathlon i did an ironman having never swam ran or biked that far in my life. it took me like more than 13 hours. i was pathetic. but i liked triathlon so i did that for almost two years as i was going to a community college in Portland working part time at Cafe yumm which is where i met the Portland state XC coach and became a runner. so i was running like three times a week plus bike and swim when i started the JMar high volume training program at PSU which was pretty quickly 100 miles a week. I was the first two weeks like the worst guy on the team. we literally split in an a and b group the second week and i was one of the slowest in the b group but that first XC race where i went out in 4:4x i was racing unaatached (hadnt sorted out NCAA eligibility yet) but ended up as our number 2 guy and more or less kept that position all year.
about the 2:12 comment. I really think that is the upper range of my ability if everything goes perfect. I train with a couple guys that can do that and from a talent perspective i dont feel they are better than me. however i am fully aware that 2:16:37 (2:16:31 chip time) might end up my marathon PR and i am at peace with that
about my weight. I raced at like 175-178 in college but after my coach was let go i stopped running for a year and did crossfit. then i got up to 200lbs at my max but not fat. i still had visible abs at 200lbs. I went back down in weight when i started running again but now as an old dad my weight hovers between 83 and 86KG and i feel really strong at 83kg sometimes when i stop eating my daily pint of ice cream and my training is good i drop under 80KG in the morning dehydrated.
I think someone asked if i do uppper body work. no not really is the answer. as a high school junior and senior i lifted a lot. my junior year i started taking cratine for some time and put on 30lbs in like 6 months (probably more due to puberty but creatine ad two hours of daily gym worked for me) i loved bench press and could do 225 8-12 times as an 18year old. i burned off some of that muscle but it never all went away. Ín college we lifted because that was just the way it was and i was not comporable in the weight room do all my boys that were true distance runners. i lifted a lot as a crossfitter. Now if i am injured i might go to the gym but i almost never find time.
