“Stay In It…Stay In It…” Says Personal Trainer Denver CO @MarkTheTrainer to @iempoweru

By admin, on May 22nd, 2012

Because I was needing a challenge, you introduced me to and encouraged me to enter the Spartan Race this year, Mark. I have already signed up for the race next year. My intention has never been to beat Hobie Call, but, to continue to refine my own physical performance, on the track and off. I know the skills I want to improve as well as those I want to excel at and now I also know my personal time that I would like to beat.

I have asked you to help me do this, and I look forward to doing that with you this coming year.

Before we move into this next level of my personal training, I wanted to share some of the non-physical things I learned from this race. The life lessons started filtering through even while I drank my free beer at the finish line!

When I was struggling through an obstacle, I imagined you standing over me, saying, “stay in it, stay in it… you can do it!” The penalty for not completing an obstacle was to do 30 burpees – and I did 210 that day. Rather than feel like a failure, I gave those burpees everything I had – with proper form and technique!

Thank you for always believing in me and in my abilities to do more, better than I did last time! Your calm acceptance of my abilities makes me want to prove you right… and most days I do!

Anyone who has followed this blogs’ posts will know that it has been a struggle for me to learn how to eat right. I was describing this struggle to one of my students last week. I told her how I withheld food from myself as punishment for my daily failures eventually leading to disastrous results. The crazy thing was that the less I ate the more I gained! I got lots of professional help over this one, including support and encouragement from you when I made healthy choices. You never criticized, judged or condemned… you just believed in my abilities to get it right. This made me want to keep doing it right. My student actually teared up when I was telling her some of the tactics we used during this time frame. She marveled at what a great trainer and person you are, of course, I agreed. I only hope that I will be the same type of trainer/mentor/teacher to all of my students as you are to me.

Just wanted to let you know that I got more than sweat and mud out of that race. It renewed my commitment to being the best that I can be for me. It renewed my commitment to “staying in it…” at the gym and in life. And now, I am really, really ready to ramp it up in our training! Running, pullups, pushups, box jumps and burpees here we go!

Onward and upward!