The Finely Tuned Athlete (No, I'm Not Kidding)

So if you're wondering who that guy is in the picture below...it's me! No, I'm not kidding...it really is! What really grabs me when I look at this picture is not how young I look or how that skinny-faced guy doesn't look much like the guy I saw in the mirror this morning. What really gets me is that I weighed 165 pounds and stood at the same height I stand today...Wow! Even now, with very aggressive weight goals, I'm still not aspiring to get back to 165...heck, I don't even know whether I can spell "one hundred and sixty five" these days...oh, okay...I guess I can.

The thing about it is, though, is that I wasn't just a skinny, scrawny kid. I was actually in shape. This picture was taken during the Rollins College baseball team's "Spring Training" in January 1985. Two months earlier, in order to earn the practice uniform I was wearing, our coach stipulated that any NCAA athlete (even a Division II athlete) should be able to run two miles in twelve minutes...yes, two miles in twelve minutes...and he required us to do so before he handed us our Spring Training uniforms. Well, I'm sorry to say that it took me a couple extra weeks because I tweaked my knee on my first attempt - with just two laps to go, too - but I got to try again in early December; and I actually completed the two miles in 11 minutes, 27 seconds.

That's a long way of saying (or bragging about how) I was a pretty good athlete in 1985; however, that well-conditioned young man didn't stick around much longer. As you'll notice in the comment under my picture and life statistics, I was "hampered" with arm injuries; and unfortunately, because I was a pitcher and because those injuries never fully healed, what I hoped would be a nice career in baseball was pretty much over before it really got started.

So, in a phrase, I really didn't "have" to run anymore. I really didn't "need" to keep my legs strong (which, for pitchers, is critical). I really didn't need to be as finely conditioned as I had been, as there was no game to train for, no two miles in twelve minutes to run. So, in retrospect, the day my baseball career ended was really the day I started heading down a slippery slope to a less healthy life and ultimately to a pretty darned unhealthy one. It didn't happen overnight, but it happened...I'll tell you more about it in my next post.

Until then, enjoy your journey...