HEALTH
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Ever since I ran a half marathon in the Spring of 2016, my knees have never been the same. I still have a desire to run another one at some point, but my main priority is getting to a place where it’s not painful being in the mountains chasing elk for a week. I dream of that day! At the end of my 2018 elk season, after 21 grueling days in the wilderness of Colorado, the pain was so bad that I went and had MRI’s done on both knees upon my return to normal life. Thankfully the results from the doc were, “extreme inflammation with possible minor tears.” At this point it hurt to go up or down stairs, and the worst was sitting down to use the restroom. My knees were certainly better during the 2019 elk season, but then my achilles tendons were inflamed. It’s tough to choose which one I’d rather deal with on the mountain because they both suck.
There are two things that I struggle with every time I go on a hunt: staying warm and staying full. I can bring the highest calorie snacks and meals on every adventure, but I can eat more than some grown men. I’ve got a handful of 215+ pound male references at my fingertips to back that statement!
A couple months back my cousin Darrell sent me a link to the Train To Hunt event coming to Texas and asked if I'd be interested. He's a crossfit guy, loves elk hunting, was born and raised in Texas, and knows the struggle every time we head to the mountains because we're flatlanders, and training (to some degree) isn't an option for success while chasing big bulls out of our home state.
I'm a 5'7" ex-soccer player of 10 years with long, lean legs; basically, I'm naturally an awesome long distance runner, right? HA! The truth is that I'm athletic, but I've always lacked the endurance that a soccer player needed to truly succeed. It didn't help being scrawny for most of my life and having an extremely weak mind due to insecurities. Here I am now, 26 years old, lifting weights and/or running at least 5 out of 7 days a week. What changed?
The saying goes that once you hit rock bottom, the only way is up. Well hitting rock bottom is relative to what you’ve experienced in life, so I’ll start by saying that i still had a roof over my head, food on the table, and a great job when I hit my rock bottom. I felt depressed, anxious, lost, broken, and all the nasty feelings in between, even though from the outside everything seemed fine. Mental health is real and it needs to be a priority for every human being! However, it’s when I got to this dark place that I decided I needed structure and something positive to focus on. That’s when #75Hard began to pop up all around me, and without thinking too long or hard about it, I began. This is a program designed by Andy Frisella and it’s completely free!