When Marc burst onto our Ragnar Relay team with a YOLO battle cry and a zest for living large, I knew we'd stumbled upon a force of nature. Our latest episode delves into his incredible transition from corporate captivity to becoming the founder of MoeFit and a beacon of fitness over 50. We're opening up the playbook on life’s second acts, showcasing the sweat, setbacks, and serendipity that fuel a comeback story worth its salt in muscle burn.
Mount Washington is more than just a monument to nature’s grandeur; it marks a turning point in Marc’s family history, from chain-smoking days to trailblazing ways. Marc’s story intertwines with his narrative of a health scare that rebooted his life, as we explore the profound impact of the great outdoors on personal transformation. This episode is a deep dive into the grit and grind that shape us, the family legacies that guide us, and the audacious goals that propel a small-town fitness venture into a community cornerstone.
Sit back and strap in as we explore the raw, muscle-aching reality of GORUCK events, the resilience built from embracing both the metaphorical and literal heavy lifting, and the communal heartbeat that kept MoeFit pulsing through a pandemic. This isn't just Marc's story; it’s a rallying cry for everyone who's ever wanted to push beyond their comfort zone, and a high-five to the support systems that help us go the distance. Join us as we forge through the trials and tribulations that underscore the power of saying 'yes' to life’s Medal Mondays.
Make sure you head over and say "YOLO" to Marc on his Instagram!
Have questions or want to chat? Send me a text!
Join the newsletter list for updates, special offers, and exclusive behind-the-scenes content.
Join fellow pod and running enthusiasts at The Stride Collective community on Facebook or follow us on Instagram.
When Marc burst onto our Ragnar Relay team with a YOLO battle cry and a zest for living large, I knew we'd stumbled upon a force of nature. Our latest episode delves into his incredible transition from corporate captivity to becoming the founder of MoeFit and a beacon of fitness over 50. We're opening up the playbook on life’s second acts, showcasing the sweat, setbacks, and serendipity that fuel a comeback story worth its salt in muscle burn.
Mount Washington is more than just a monument to nature’s grandeur; it marks a turning point in Marc’s family history, from chain-smoking days to trailblazing ways. Marc’s story intertwines with his narrative of a health scare that rebooted his life, as we explore the profound impact of the great outdoors on personal transformation. This episode is a deep dive into the grit and grind that shape us, the family legacies that guide us, and the audacious goals that propel a small-town fitness venture into a community cornerstone.
Sit back and strap in as we explore the raw, muscle-aching reality of GORUCK events, the resilience built from embracing both the metaphorical and literal heavy lifting, and the communal heartbeat that kept MoeFit pulsing through a pandemic. This isn't just Marc's story; it’s a rallying cry for everyone who's ever wanted to push beyond their comfort zone, and a high-five to the support systems that help us go the distance. Join us as we forge through the trials and tribulations that underscore the power of saying 'yes' to life’s Medal Mondays.
Make sure you head over and say "YOLO" to Marc on his Instagram!
Have questions or want to chat? Send me a text!
Join the newsletter list for updates, special offers, and exclusive behind-the-scenes content.
Join fellow pod and running enthusiasts at The Stride Collective community on Facebook or follow us on Instagram.
You do. You only live once and use your body, use what you have.
Speaker 2:Time for brunch. Empower, inspire, connect, ignite your journey. Welcome back to Time for Brunch with myself, coach Christine. I'm your host and in this episode I have brought out of the vaults an incredible, inspirational and a super fun, high energetic friend. Before we bring him in for you to be able to hear his story and be inspired, I want to get into today's conversation because, let me tell you, mark is absolutely such an extraordinary individual.
Speaker 2:I met Mark during this unforgettable Ragnar Relay and if you aren't familiar with Ragnar Relay, it's generally a race that's had where you cover 200 miles over the course of a weekend basically a night and two days and you pair up with other runners from your friend group, or maybe strangers, and you tackle the specific distance of your friend group, or maybe strangers and you tackle the specific distance. Well, ragnar Relay, for me, started where I was scrolling through social media and I saw this incredible race where people were running over the Seven Mile Bridge. Now, since those days of the Florida Keys Ragnar Road Race, it's no longer around. There have been other races that have popped up where you can run across the seven mile bridge, but at this time, the seven mile bridge the only way you could run it officially as part of a race was through the Ragnar relay and I knew I had to do it. I was just called to it immediately. I put out a call on the internet and soon I had a friend and then maybe a two friends and then a friend's friend who wanted to participate 24 runners later we officially had not one but two teams to tackle the Florida Keys Ragnar Relay. I can't even begin to tell you how exciting that was. Well, managing a Ragnar Relay team much less two, was a little bit of a challenge, considering I never had run a Ragnar Relay team. Much less two was a little bit of a challenge, considering I never had run a Ragnar race prior to that. However, I'm going to give kudos and credit to my co-captains Absolutely phenomenal. But in the course of Ragnar Relay generally, you do have a few people who maybe life obligations came up or potential injuries drop out throughout the season before you actually make it to the start line, and that did happen to us. So I went out into the interwebs, put out a call again for maybe somebody to join our team and that's when Mark said bingo, I'm your guy.
Speaker 2:And truly not knowing us, not knowing him, he showed up and he brought so much life and vibrancy to our entire trip. And that's just who he is. He only does live once kind of attitude. He's not just saying it because it's on a bumper sticker, he's not just saying it because you can sell t-shirts with it. He lives his life that way. He lives it loud. He lives it in a way where he doesn't request permission. He doesn't wait for people to say, hey, you should try this. He goes forward and whatever really speaks to his heart. And I felt so lucky having him in my circle because he was so inspirational. Take it a little bit further. After that. We did a couple of runs together, we did a triathlon together.
Speaker 2:I even maybe made a guest appearance or two on his podcast, but that's not specifically why I brought him here. I brought him here because, to this day, he is still living out his dreams. He's still not waiting for permission from anyone except himself and maybe his wife on occasion. Shout out to Joy. You'll hear more about her in a little bit. But he really has thrown himself into the life that he wanted, and it's actually quite the parallel to the conversations that I've been having lately with some of my athletes and clients who are waiting for permission. They're not sure if they're ready, they're not sure if this is something they should tackle. They're a little afraid or trepidatious over really going after their big, audacious goals and dreams. And I do mean it's a whole host of gamuts of conversations that I've had where I hear a fear or I hear the feelings of maybe not being confident yet not being there yet. Well, friends, you're gonna hear Mark's story and you're gonna hear how so many times it just took him wanting to try it, and you're gonna hear how sometimes it was successful and sometimes not, but that did not stop him. He keeps coming back, and I think that's why we were instantly just absolutely gravitated towards each other. So, without further ado, let me quit talking, because you really want to hear his story. So I do want to bring on Mark.
Speaker 2:Mark's journey is a testament to personal and professional transformation, and for a couple of us that are lucky enough, they do go hand in hand. He grew up in the rugged terrains of New England and Mark was instilled with a love for fitness from a young age, completing his first half marathon at just 13. However, life took a turn when he entered into the corporate world, leading to a period where health took a back seat. He faced some health challenges, but Mark decided I'm going to make a pivotal change, and that led, many years later, to the creation of MoFit. Today he's a certified USA weightlifting level two coach, a personal trainer with the American Council on Exercise and an ACE fitness nutrition specialist.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a whole lot of credentials, but basically he's there to inspire, he's there to motivate and he's there to kick some asphalt and give you a couple kicks in the asphalt when you need it as well. So, from his dark days as a corporate raider to his incredible journey now back to health, mark's story inspires us all to embrace change and pursue our passions. So grab your favorite brunch, or maybe your pair of shoes, maybe even a weightlifting vest. You'll hear more about that and let's dive into a story of health, fitness and inspiration and how we only live once with Mark. Welcome on in, mark, and how are you doing?
Speaker 1:I am awesome, christine. I've been looking forward to this. I haven't talked to you face to face in a while. I don't think.
Speaker 2:It's been forever.
Speaker 1:We've been friends for a long time and I've been looking forward to this podcast. I'm really, really super happy to be here. This is cool.
Speaker 2:Well, you have such a cool vibe and you always have such a cool vibe and you always have such a cool again really high energy, really upbeat, always up for adventure, always up for really kind of challenging yourself to find the limits of where sometimes we have preconceived limitations and pushing past them. So before I get into bragging all about all the awesomeness that you've inspired me for, I want to hear more about you and take us back to those early days growing up in New England and how those experiences shaped your initial interest in fitness.
Speaker 1:You couldn't have led into that better, christine. I grew up in New England, born in Connecticut, and when we were really really young my dad was super overweight. He was actually really overweight. Bmi wasn't a thing back then but he would have had an atrocious BMI back in the day and this was in the early 70s. So 70, 72, 73. I was born in 1970. And I remember him being a very large guy and he had a big, thick beard and everything.
Speaker 1:And one day a friend of his said hey, let's go hike up Mount Washington. And for those who don't know, mount Washington in New Hampshire is the biggest mountain in New England. It's not the biggest one on the East Coast. There's bigger ones down farther south in the Smokies A little over 6,000 feet tall, but because of its latitude it's very far up latitude-wise on the planet. So treeline, which is the point in the mountain where weather gets rough enough that trees can no longer grow, treeline is at around 4,000 feet. So the top 2,000 feet of Mount Washington is above treeline and it's a very, very jagged mountain. It almost looks like the Rockies and it's right there in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1:So anyway, my completely out of shape dad and his friend Barry went and another guy named Bill. They went and hiked it and it almost destroyed him, almost absolutely destroyed him. He had no business being on that mountain at the time, because the weather can turn on you in a heartbeat as well. It's known for having the world's worst weather. Anyway, they did it, they made it up and they made it down, and that was a epiphany for my dad.
Speaker 1:So from that moment on I was four years old. I didn't have really much say in how I was going to be shaped yet, but from that moment on we were a hiking family, we were a camping family. He stopped chain smoking, he got incredibly fit, started. He ran the Boston Marathon a few years after that. It was a huge transformation. So I'm very, very fortunate, and so is my brother. He went on that hike that day with Barry and the whole philosophy of our family and our whole family vibe changed that day and everything I've ever done after that is because of that day, and I don't take that for granted for a second ever. That's how it all started.
Speaker 2:I think that's extraordinary because, first of all, yes, I have not been hiking there, but I've seen videos. It's super rugged terrain. It actually looks like hiking is pretty loosely used. It's a little bit almost because of the vertical aspect of it. It looks like some people in some sections you almost have to do a little bit of like rock climbing hiking so pretty intense. And now it makes like. I had a light bulb moment, knowing that you generally do not say no to adventure, no matter what the it may be. I could see where you got it from and clearly I love to hear that it changed really the trajectory of your not just your dad's life, but your life and all the people that you impact. So that's the beginning. But then you got into your own adult life. You got into corporate world, living that nine to five kind of hustle life, and you had a bit of challenges with your physical health. Is that correct?
Speaker 1:Oh man, yeah, I did so in high school. I was still pretty healthy and I was athletic. I ran cross country in high school and did well. But then nine to five happened moved to Tennessee, moved to Nashville. I was in the radio broadcasting industry at the time and got out of that industry because it was just a horrible industry. It's a horrible universe to be in. But then I met who would eventually be my wife in Tennessee and then both of us started working for Dell, a computer company, and started making gobs of money. We were living the corporate life. I mean wine and dining clients. We had titles like account executives. I had clients like Rolls Royce and Target and giant enterprise companies like that and I was living. We both were living that.
Speaker 1:I got into the lifestyle much more than she did and as a result of being in that sphere I just became tremendously overweight, tremendously unhealthy. I was living off. Also, we were taking clients on dining events. So if I wasn't eating tremendous volumes of food at fancy restaurants that I was surviving off of food at the vending machine down at the end of the hall when I was in the call center doing that job. So, between calorie counts that were astronomical and calories that were consisting of mostly pork rinds and, incredibly just, god-awful food. I just ballooned and I keep a picture of me. I can probably just show you real easy on this camera. I keep this photo on my phone to remind me. This is a photo of me in 2010.
Speaker 2:It's a different human being.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's me in 2010. And this is always on my phone. This is never going to leave my phone. Went to a physical, just routine physical, with my doctor. They took my you know, we did blood work. Do you know what? Do you have to tell your head what a?
Speaker 2:good triglyceride number is when you get your cholesterol checked. Oh, that's a great question. I feel like it should be under a hundred, but I'm not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, under a hundred.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Anything over a hundred is high, and if you get up to a couple hundred 300, then that's really high. My triglycerides were over 600.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. I mean pork rinds, my friend. I get it, but I didn't even know it could go that high. To be a hundred percent honest with you, man, I didn't either.
Speaker 1:I didn't, I mean I didn't know triglycerides were. Now I know what triglycerides are. It's sugar floating around in your blood. Essentially, the doctor said look, you need to change everything about what you're doing. Everything about your life needs to change. I said all right, and I kind of chuckled and he said no, no, no. I'm like. He looked at me and I will never forget the look on his face. I said I'm serious. He said you are going to die. At the time I was late 30s, early 40s and he said no, you are going to die. He said you are not going to reach 50 years old. So that was saying it, and the look on his face was terrifying. I really wanted to make 50 years, for example, for what it's worth. I'm 54 now, so I fixed it.
Speaker 2:Yes, you did, yeah, and I can't wait to talk more about that. You know, what I always kind of calls to mind, for me specifically, is it thanks to modern medicine? I don't know that people die as often, but the quality of life that you have when you have triglycerides in the 600s is such a completely different. It's just a whole different quality of life. And while medical and modern medicine may have been able to save your life, if you would have had a cardiac event or any of that sort, I assume you probably would have had lack of mobility, you would have had inflammation, would have had pain. You would have just had a completely different life than the life you now lead, which I, when I think of you, I think of synonymous with an individual who goes out and throws on a rucksack and goes out for 20 miles just for fun.
Speaker 2:And I'm not kidding friends, this is just when we're talking about Mark. You're talking about an individual who, quite literally, can do some of the feats that would be considered out of this world extraordinary, and he just does them on a random, regular Tuesday, because that's just what inspired him that day. So you make this big change, what's first? Because, let's be honest, it's not that easy to go from living that corporate nine to five life where you're whining and dining and eating high in the hog for lack of a better reference when you're talking about pork rinds. How do you change and make that trajectory kind of flip around a little bit?
Speaker 1:Well, the first thing I did was I got out of that job. It was that career that was killing me, it was that environment. I quit that and I owe a lot of who I am today to my wife, because she still works at Dell to this day and because of the revenue stream that was coming into the household from her working at Dell. We were able to and it's not all me, it's we, everything is we we were able to start the company that I'm standing in right now, which we'll get into. But the first thing I did was left Dell and I started selling used cars, which was an environment that was, believe it or not, when you think of a used car salesman, you think of a shady guy wearing a tweed jacket coming out trying to sell you a lemon in the parking lot, and the industry is most used car guys aren't that bad. And in fact, that industry was exactly what I needed. It was actually a lot of fun and it was not corporate America. And so I got out.
Speaker 1:I didn't stay in that industry too long, but, man, that was the turning point. And then I started running, christine, I just started running and running, and running, and running, and it was the running that finally started making me lose the weight. I had a 38 waist at the peak of it and the running got me back down to a 31, 32, where I still am. And then, through the running, I started going to.
Speaker 1:Uh, joey and I my wife and I started going to like run clubs in town. You know, like the Tuesday night, a lot of restaurants and bars will have a run night and go out and do your run and then you get a free beer and you know those kinds of things. So we started doing those. And then I bumped into a guy at one of the run clubs who was a owner of a CrossFit gym here in town and his name is Allie and we're still good friends to this day, and I was just chatting with him after this run club and he said, hey, I've got a CrossFit competition coming up in like four days. And he said would you like to emcee it? And I said yes, what's CrossFit?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:He had the PA system and everything set up. It was in a local park in Cocoa Florida. Down here it was in a band shell in a park and we had it all set up. I kind of Googled what the heck is CrossFit and learned a lot about it. And his CrossFit, and learned a lot about it and I emceed this CrossFit competition that he was hosting and that was a lot of fun. And he said you should come and coach at my gym. And again I was like Ali four days ago. I didn't know what CrossFit was. I said let me go to your gym for a while and see if it's anything that I can get into. So we did. And then I went and got certified to be a CrossFit coach. After that coached in his gym and that was kind of the beginning of the current iteration of me. At that point that was probably eight years ago now and that was the beginning of this version, I think.
Speaker 2:I think what's so cool about that, too, though, is that you made a really hard choice, and I love that you're crediting your wife. Joy is an extraordinary human being, no doubt about it but you made a really hard choice where you chose your health and your life for all intents and purposes in terms of the quality of your life, the longevity of your life over a comfortable, steady revenue stream, and I think that's scary. I really want to call that out. I think that that is incredibly scary to leave that comfort behind, but to make that decision that you and your health are more important.
Speaker 1:But I'll stop you for a quick second. Right there, I purposely made a point to say that we still had money coming in from her job. And if I didn't, I don't know that I would have made that choice if I was not married and married to her at the same time. So it was all those things you just said, but also it wasn't like I was throwing it all into the wind because we had a safety blanket.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I get it. I get it, but still we can all get used to our certain standards of living and having to make those fluctuations or changes is still always a little bit hard. But I'm not surprised that Ali wanted you to be a coach right away because, again, anybody who meets you, you have this really larger than life energy and personality. And I also believe, if I remember correctly with that specific CrossFit, was that he was more of a CrossFit endurance type box gym, because he did also train folks with marathons, which you were ultra endurance yourself. What brings us to MoFitcom and what does it stand for? Because I feel like there's a little bit of fun with the acronym of it as well. So can you tell us more about MoFit and how that came to be?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is nobody named Mo here.
Speaker 2:And I get that all the time too, my favorite go to.
Speaker 1:When everybody says are you Moe? I always say yes, I am, and you may know me from that band I started as well, way back in the late sixties.
Speaker 2:My name is Pink, oh my goodness, okay. So tell us, where did the name Moe Fit come from?
Speaker 1:Well, I was working for Allie and actually even I think the name started before or maybe around the same time. Moe stands Mud, obstacle and Endurance, so it's an acronym for Mud, obstacle and Endurance. So if you look at the logo, the M and the O and the E are capitalized and then fit is lowercase in our logo. So it stands for Mud, obstacle and Endurance. And we actually very, very when we first started out, we were just doing personal training at a one-on-one level motor races and Spartan races and marathons and ultras and that kind of thing and we had minor success doing that. And this is while I was still coaching at Ali's gym. We were kicking around, just kicking stones down the road, thinking now let's find a building and open up our own little coaching place, as opposed to doing this. You know where we go out and train somebody, in a park or whatever. And one day we saw an ad for this tiny little storage bay in Titusville, which is about 20 miles up the road from where Ali's gym was, and it was like 300, 400 bucks a month or something like that, and it was, I don't know, maybe 500 square feet and had nothing in it. It was just concrete walls and tiny little place and I texted, I think, a link to it, joy, and I said what do you think of this place? She's like eh, how about it, joy? And I said, what do you think of this place? She's like, yeah, how about it? Let's look at it. So, like, a day later, we signed a lease on it and, you know, we started with one rowing machine. And do we even have a rowing machine? We started with a really cheap pull-up rig, one barbell, a couple of plates, a kettlebell, maybe one wall ball, you know, one medicine ball and that was the beginning of mofit as a brick and mortar place.
Speaker 1:But also, too, ali's Gym is an example of a really good CrossFit gym, and CrossFit has a lot of examples around the world of really bad CrossFit gyms. It's one thing that they didn't get out ahead of, I think, in time, as they ballooned and grew over the last 20 years, was allowing a lack of standardization from one gym to the next. I'm not saying I could have done it any better, but whatever, however they evolved, that's how it happened. So you go to one CrossFit gym in Dubuque, iowa, and it's awesome and they got awesome coaches and they really care about making sure you don't hurt yourself and you do everything right. And then you move to Salem, massachusetts, and there's a CrossFit gym there too and you go to it and the coaches they're all idiots and they have no idea what they're doing. You end up herniating a disc on the third day there, right? So it is really that different from one gym to the next inside the CrossFit universe.
Speaker 1:You know, there's a few things about the way CrossFit as a methodology didn't really light my candle. So CrossFit was or MoFit was born as a means to be sort of an alternative to the way some things are done at CrossFit. We treat things a little bit differently here, and so that was the beginning of it. As we got new members. You know, each time we got a new member we'd spend that money on a new piece of equipment and then it would grow and grow and we'd go buy another bumper plate, we'd go buy another medicine ball, you know we grew and grew and grew and then finally we outgrew that building and then we're in the building that we're in now, which is a step aside for a second. You can see it's a nice big, open area gym. I love this building and our classes are packed and we're here every day and it's been an incredible journey.
Speaker 2:It's so exciting to hear because it is quite literally, I mean, what we would all want for ourselves when you hear of somebody kind of creating corporate America, granted, I'm giving Joy a big shout out for all of her holding down the fort, but for you to kind of broach this and making this dream come true. I also feel like it speaks to your personal mission, though, because you are super passionate about helping folks to be their healthiest. So how does some of your background, both with your dad's experience, your own experience, how does that weave into your personal philosophy with your training and the services you offer at MoFit?
Speaker 1:That's an awesome question. So yeah, and you're right, when I'm coaching a class or coaching a person, my primary goal is I kind of sometimes and I literally think this sometimes I pretend I'm my dad showing me something new, some kind of cool experience. And I remember. You just made me remember another fond memory when we were at I want to say it was fifth or sixth grade. We're still living in Connecticut and this was several years into our we're a hiking family now phase and my mom and dad put on a slideshow in the basement of the school where my brother and I were going to school and it was a big deal, like the whole school came down and hundreds of kids in the basement of this school and my mom and dad put on a slideshow. All about the joy and wonders of going out and hiking and climbing and camping, backwoods camping and Rocky Mountain. High John Denver song was the soundtrack to the slideshow.
Speaker 1:I remember so well and we still have I mean, I'm sure we still have this back in the day of slides where you put them in a carousel and put them in a projector. I'm sure my mom's basement somewhere that's carousel of slides probably still exists from that day. But sometimes when I'm, you know I'm out rucking with a bunch of people who a year ago never heard of rucking and we've been out since the day before and the sun's about to come up and you know we're out doing just crazy stuff, out in the middle of the street, somewhere in the middle of the city, somewhere, I feel like my dad that day at school playing the slideshow for other people, trying to get them into this. Because to a point you made earlier, you know you only live once. I think you said YOLO right at the beginning of it when we first started talking. You do you only live once and use your body, use what you have. There's a meme that started circulating a while ago, something about sliding in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's exactly what I came to mind. Yeah, it's basically that you don't want to be well preserved at the end. You want to basically slide into it, like knowing that you did everything, you used everything up, like you just kind of squeezed all the juiciness out of life and what it had to offer, including our bodies, and pushing past those limitations. Okay, so you've touched on it. You just nailed it.
Speaker 2:Basically, I wanna touch on the fact that you said that why you love what you do and how you love teaching your classes and coaching your classes is you want people to see the body and see their ability to move their body and to approach fitness from a place of joy, a place of excitement, a place of I, a place of excitement, a place of I don't have to do this or this sucks, I don't want to have to do this today.
Speaker 2:It's truly a. We are so excited to be able to tackle these hard workouts or to tackle these obstacles or challenges. So, as anybody can hear, probably coming through on their headphones or however they're listening to us, there is quite a bit of excitement, exuberant and joy that you bring across, which I want to also talk about. I want to weave into again. For folks that are maybe just dabbling in fitness, maybe they started with their first walk or C2 5K or they're just starting to consider this, going back to where you first started. What are some of the tips that you would suggest for folks that are kind of a little trepidatious, have a little bit of fear, a little bit of anxiety around all of the fitness aspects and getting started on their own journey?
Speaker 1:Sometimes you just got to say what the F right? Remember Risky Business, remember Tom Cruise and Risky Business. I think that sums it up. Just do it, just steal another corporate slogan.
Speaker 2:Hey, it's a good one. It's a good one, so okay.
Speaker 1:But I mean you have. I mean, what do you seriously have to lose, other than maybe you don't like it? Go find out that you don't like it. That thing that you want to try in something, you say at the beginning. Always say yes Whenever somebody asks you to try something new. No, it's not a part of your vocabulary. When everybody says you got to come try this thing, yes, hey, you want to go to this insanely dumb thing with me. Yes, yes, I do.
Speaker 2:It's definitely not a part of your vocabulary, that's for sure, because you have said yes to multiple adventures and throughout your lifetime.
Speaker 2:So let's touch on some of those, because I think that you have so much fun in your journeys and what I love. One of the first things that I love about you, mark and I want to definitely point that out for folks that are just getting to know you through this podcast is that you tend to, from outside, looking in, you'll say yes to things without a overwhelming amount of fear of maybe not being able to succeed at it the first time around. Journey that maybe you weren't successful the first time out but you were able to get, continue going. So having that persistence, that tenacity, that grit, that kind of really helps to make the difference between getting started and continuing to evolve, because I think that getting started something that maybe we can all do, but once we come across that challenge or obstacle, we may get dead in the water. So tell me more about how you kind of overcome those fears, those obstacles, to do some of the extraordinary things that you've done.
Speaker 1:It's really not that hard. You have to accept that failing at something is part of succeeding at something. I mean, think how boring it would be to win immediately, right out of the gate. You try some new thing and immediately you're the best at it. Okay, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2:I mean, I get you, I do get you, but I still think that there's some fear about it. So you're saying just kind of accept that that is part of what this process is going to look like. There's going to be some days that you are at the top of the class and there's going to be other days where whatever the workout may be or whatever you challenge yourself is probably going to feel like it's you're the worst person in the entire world with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and that happens. And I see that. I see that on the faces of the members of gym here all the time Somebody who's always on the top and every sometimes they're not on the top and they're dragging, and that's inspiring to me to watch them get through that. This is so cliche too, but it's all about the journey, not the destination, right, and the journey is about failing and failing and failing over and over and over again. If you can figure out a way in your own mind to make failing at things fun and don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to cliche that either make it sound like that's easy to do, because failure sometimes is miserable. You know what it is. I just thought of it. It's all about the contrast, okay, like you can't appreciate when you succeed at something unless you have failed so dramatically at that thing to begin with. Otherwise you don't recognize it. When you've succeeded, you don't understand being at the pinnacle of your life unless you've lived on the street for a week.
Speaker 2:Which I think is exactly what your journey has shown us, is like you are at a top level of your fitness, but you've also lived your life where you have a doctor telling you that you're going to die before you know within a decade. Essentially so it is as you said. Those contrasts is really important and knowing that reframing kind of that failure aspect to ourselves which I agree is hard but absolutely pivotal for that tenacity to continue going. So tell me some of your fondest memories of some of the maybe the MoFit type stuff that you tackled in your own personal life.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you some of my greatest failures. I'm into go-ruck, as you know. Yeah, but the sport of rucking, but go-ruck is what got me into it. You can see the Go Ruck flag hanging right here at my gym. Go Ruck is a company.
Speaker 2:I was going to say. I was going to interrupt you for just a second to explain to people what rucking is if they aren't familiar with it.
Speaker 1:Rucking as an exercise or as a sport is just throwing a backpack on with some weight on it and going up and walking. That's all rucking is. In addition, some people say let's hike it. But hiking is You're getting to that mountaintop or you're getting to that waterfall, love that, yeah, that's hiking. Rucking is when you're doing it specifically for the exercise. That's the biggest difference. You're throwing on a rucksack, it's got 20, 30, 40 or more pounds in it and you're doing a specific routine. You're hiking to a place, in fact a certain number of miles, and you're doing stuff a lot. But that's what rucking is. And rucking can sometimes involve going for 24 to 48 hours straight in an extreme case, without stopping. And we're doing one this Friday night. Actually, I'll tell you about that. We're doing a really cool one here in Titusville.
Speaker 1:But GoRuck is a company that really took rucking into the mainstream. They're started by a guy named Jason McCarthy who was a Green Beret in the military and he wasn't happy with the ruck stacks that they were given to use when they went off on actual combat missions. So he made his own. When he got out of the military, he designed his own rucksack and got a few of his special forces buddies to get with him and put them through the ringer, go off and do some rucking. You know they're civilians at this point. They'll go beat the crap out of these rucks for 12 hours straight and see if they can stand up to what they can put them through. And then he made a couple other design changes. Then, you know, he would ask a few more of his buddies to go, and let's go. We're going to do it again next Saturday. We're going to go out all night, do crazy stuff. You know we're going to go into rivers and we're going to go sliding down cliffs and crawling our hands and knees for mud and doing all this stuff. And then eventually other people are like I want to go too. You know, the next time you do that, let me know.
Speaker 1:And then next thing, you know he had a small little production facility where he was making rucksacks and selling them one at a time to begin with, and he was starting to organize these events and getting his special forces buddies to run them, because sometimes he'd be having two or three events happening in different places at the same time on the same night. Nowadays times, he'd be having two or three events happening in different places at the same time on the same night. Nowadays, fast forward to now and go rucks a huge company and they also make shoes and pants and rucksacks and they have every weekend of the year. They have events going on all over the country. You could just go to their website, pick an event, sign up for it and show up and just get yelled at. They're all special.
Speaker 1:And if they everybody at go ruck that runs and they're all special. And if they everybody at GORUCK that runs events they're all retired or current active duty special forces military guys, not just regular pencil pusher military guys. These are green berets, army Rangers, marine force, recon Navy SEALs, our air force, pjs, these guys and they absolutely. It's like fantasy camp for civilians to experience the tip of a pencil of what special forces selection would be like right you know, for a couple hours and then you get to go home.
Speaker 1:So it is really nothing like that at all, but they put you through kind of fantasy camp for that and so, anyway, they have different lengths of these and they have one called a heavy. It's a heavy, it's 24 hours long. I knew I was confident I could finish it. Okay, and the thing is too when, if you can't finish a go-ruck, they tell you at the very beginning, in fact on the list of things you're supposed to bring with you on a go-ruck event is a driver's license and a $20 bill, and the $20 bill is for the cab.
Speaker 2:Oh God, ah okay, now I feel like you just have to have Uber credit, but still I feel you Basically. It's a little disheartening.
Speaker 1:Nowadays it's Uber, but they still make you bring a lot of it. Is following directions right? They want to see that you follow the directions. You still have to bring a 20, even though you're going to whip your phone out and call an Uber. But so, yeah, so you have to have a $ of the event. Okay, and it's about a 50% completion rate on the heavies, on these 24-hour long ones.
Speaker 1:I was so sure I was going to. I was training and training hard and I flew all the way to New Orleans for where this one was and made it to about 3.30 in the morning when I could tell I had had rhabdomyolysis once already in my life at this point and my traps had swollen up to here and I know what rabdo feels like and I went up to the cadre. We were in a park in the middle of new orleans at 3 30 in the morning. We were taking a little break and I couldn't even do a burpee. If I bent over to try to do a burpee, even without my ruck on, my whole body would cramp up. I was like, oh man, so I know what it feels like. I'd been. I spent four days in the hospital, the last time with Rabdo.
Speaker 1:So I went up to the Cadre and they're so not because these guys get shot at for a living. Nothing faces them, you know. I went up and was like, hey, hey, god, I think I'm going to have to bail. He goes all right, you're right, what's going on? I said, yeah, I'm like, all right, I'll call for a newbie. He goes all right. Well, good luck, dude. And that was me dropping up. That was how he. There was no formalities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say they're not calling the med, like tech, to come over or anything and kind of help you through. They're not handing you fluids. It's just kind of like, okay, you knew what you official, coming back home after you had psyched yourself up thinking you were definitely going to make this happen. It wasn't. You had trained for it, you felt confident about it and then not actually completing it according to how you had hoped to have a finish for it.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you the lowest of the low on that one. They all the rest of the group left me sitting on a bench waiting for my Uber. They all walked away and I'm sitting on a bench waiting for my Uber. They all walked away and I'm sitting on a bench waiting for my Uber. I couldn't even put my ruck on, I had to drag it along the ground and the Uber took me back to my car, my rental car, which was where the whole thing started, at another park 15 miles away from there, however far away it was, and I will never forget this and we spent a lot of money on plane tickets and hotel and everything to go to this. My wife could probably tell the same story, but from her perspective. I remember I just sat in the car and I just started bawling. I just lost it and I called my wife and she answered the phone and it was just me weeping Aww and it was so awful I'm getting a little teared up thinking about it.
Speaker 2:Did you go back and complete the heavy though?
Speaker 1:I still have not completed the heavy to this day. This was last year. I'm going to do the one that I'm training for now is in next March, so almost a year from now. It's at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, so I'll get that one. Okay, I've done a bunch of the 12 hour ones. They have 12 hour long ones that are just as hard but only 12 hours long, and I've done a million of those.
Speaker 2:I want to kind of paint a picture, a couple of different things for me and I've never rucked, so I don't know. But what I'm hearing is for folks that are maybe know more about running than they do about rucking, to me it feels very much consider like a Barkley marathons. It's like part torture. Like you said, special forces, you're not really going into it with the idea of a high completion rate. And then I also want to call out what rhabdo is, because there might be folks that maybe don't know how serious it can be and why it was so pivotal for you to pull out, because it's somebody who had already had experience with it. You knew that it could potentially truly be something that would be fatal or land you in the hospital. It basically means that you're breaking down your muscle tissue quicker than a chance than your body has to process. It is my understanding. Is that correct, mark?
Speaker 1:Essentially, your muscle tissue is basically liquefying, sort of and seeping into your blood, and that's not good. No, there's an enzyme in your muscles that it excretes, called the creatine phosphocontinase, and it seeps into your bloodstream and it's always in your blood. There is always a little bit of it. So if you were to get a blood test they're going to do a test for rhabdo they'd find they measure it in units per milliliter. It's like parts per million kind of a measurement, right, and it's usually like on a normal day or even after a good workout, some cpk, that's creatine phosphinase, is going to leak into your blood. You'll have 50 or 60 units per milliliter. After a really hard workout, you might have around 100 units per milliliter. The definition of rhabdo, I think, begins at 100 units per milliliter. I can't remember. It might be a couple hundred. It's up in that range is where they then be calling it. It's now defined as you have rhabdo if your CPK levels are above. I want to say 100. It's a pretty low number.
Speaker 1:So I was running the first time I had it. I was running a race, a road race, just a running race, but it was up, ironically, mount Washington in New Hampshire. Back to that mountain again. There's a road that goes up it if you want to drive up it, and there's a gift shop and everything on the summit. So I was running. It's 7.6 miles from the beginning to the top and the average grade is about like this.
Speaker 1:It's ridiculous and I assumed, as with most races, there were going to be aid stations every couple of miles, but there was one at the half point mark and that was it. You're supposed to bring your own water. You're supposed to run with a camelback or something. So about mile six, the charley horses and the cramping and the throwing up got so bad that I just fell over. I was in a fetal position on the side of the road and every now and then I would just turn my head to throw up and then I'd just go back to this pretzel position where it didn't hurt anymore. And anyway, ambulance ride, blah, blah, blah. I ended up in the hospital and the threshold is 100.
Speaker 1:Threshold is a hundred. My CPK levels when they tested it at the hospital were 60,000.
Speaker 2:So, mark, I feel like when you take tests, you can't just take a test and get like an A. You have to make sure that whenever you're getting, you're like going to just go off the charts because you're literally bringing in numbers I didn't even know existed. Good God, man, thank God that you're like still with us after that. That's incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was terrible.
Speaker 2:Needless to say, he had quite a bit of an experience with it. So when you made that very wise decision while albeit incredibly hard, as you mentioned, that we're not trying to just say get over yourself, you're going to fail. It is hard, it is emotional, but also part of if you're trying anything that's outside of your comfort zone. It's going to inevitably happen. So tell me, what's next? You have MoFit. You've got an incredible group of people who you are helping to change their lives. They're energetic, they're passionate about their fitness as well. You're planning on doing another ruck race next year. What's in the horizon for both MoFit and yourself personally that you're excited to kind of venture into?
Speaker 1:Right now, our goal is building the business, and that's harder than you, I know you know about this too. You can be a great coach and have no idea how to run a business. They are two so completely different things, so we're working on that.
Speaker 2:Usually yeah, usually it's actually quite opposite. Yeah, the skills for running a business or for the marketing or the different hats that you have to wear for actually the coaching aspect, usually aren't necessarily the same or housed in the same individual. But you've done such a phenomenal job and I also want to call out giving you my kudos. You started your business before the pandemic. The fact that you were able to make a brick and mortar business make it through the pandemic is extraordinary, so you should definitely give you enjoy and your team because you have a team of coaches a lot of kudos for that as well.
Speaker 1:You know how we did that. You know how we made it through the pandemic. By the time that came along, we had a fair amount of equipment. We were a pretty good, pretty well-stocked gym at that point. And when the governor shut down, for? But? I immediately sent out an email blast and got on our private Facebook group for the gym and told the entire gym look, we're shut down, we can't be open anymore. Everybody show up at the gym tomorrow between this hour and this hour and take whatever you want. And we literally lent out every single last piece of equipment that we had at the gym.
Speaker 2:That is so incredible.
Speaker 1:To everybody. I mean, part of it was business, because in my brain I was like if we lent him a barbell, he's not going to quit his membership.
Speaker 2:Right, so then were they just following like a workout of the day that you posted at home, or how did that happen in terms of I continued to program workouts and I made them more home friendly.
Speaker 1:You know things that you could do. I also ran two Zoom classes a day while we were in lockdown. So even a little five-pound dumbbell from the rack was gone Everything from the gym. It was empty. I think 90% of our members took something home from the gym. So between that we gave all of our equipment away on a loan basis. I just kept a spreadsheet of who took what and then we ran, you know, stayed very active, stayed the messaging up amongst all the members and we ran the two classes a day on Zoom. And then, when gyms opened back up, we lost one member during the whole two months that the lockdown happened for COVID. Then two months later it was only two months here in Florida, because we're Florida there was a pandemic.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, yeah, a whole nother, there was a pandemic.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean yeah, Whole nother conversation.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we only had a two month COVID down here in Florida. But when gyms opened back up, I just sent out a note. I said all right, everybody bring all your stuff back. And in 45 minutes every last piece of equipment was returned back to the gym and the next day we opened up like nothing happened. That was how we did it.
Speaker 2:That goes to show what kind of camaraderie and community you've created. So I want to say, folks, if you are down here in the Space Coast area, if any of you folks that are coming down for the Space Coast half or full want to drop in to MoFit it's just a short trip away from Coco. It is in the Space Coast. He's got classes 10 times per day, monday through Friday. As you heard. He always has fun events coming on up so you could always drop on in for maybe your own entry into a Ruck event or more. But follow him on Instagram It'll be on episode notes as well as check out the website.
Speaker 2:Also will be an episode notes. I want to ask you, mark, before we officially leave for today, because I feel like I would love to have you back, because we just again started scratching the tip of the surface of all of the fun that you can offer folks and all the wisdom that you have what one piece of advice would you have that's not maybe a Nike slogan to listeners that are looking at making some lasting health changes. What would it be?
Speaker 1:Don't be afraid to really mess yourself up good.
Speaker 2:I'm going to let people sit with that for a second. Okay, I want you to expand a little bit. It's powerful, but I want you to expand on it. What do you mean specifically?
Speaker 1:Don't be afraid to really mess yourself up. Good If you have an opportunity to try something new and it might kill you. You know there's a good risk of serious injury but you can still do it safely. You know skydiving, diving, whitewater rafting. Do those things because you do only live once.
Speaker 2:And there's one of my favorite cliches of all time is there's no U-Hauls to heaven. You're not taking anything with you. Got it, I gotcha Okay.
Speaker 1:You're not taking anything with you. Go out, take chances and mess yourself up good over and over again, recover from it and then you know, wash, rinse and repeat and be that guy who slides in all broken at the end of the day, and then take that philosophy and inspire other people to do the same thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, with that said, friends, join me in commissioning and petitioning Mark to start his podcast again, because, again, this is a type of inspiration you get from him. This is the wisdom he shares and this is why he is so much fun to be around. So please do follow on social. When you're in the area, I do strongly suggest you head over and check him out and meet him in person, check out the gym, and MoFit is where you want to be. So, mark, thank you so very, very much for joining me.
Speaker 1:I loved hanging out with you, Christine. It's been too long.
Speaker 2:It has been. Let's make this another thing. Let's do this again, absolutely yes, okay, as you can tell, friends, we really are big fans of each other. I loved that conversation. I think he's got so much wisdom and I love his chutzpah. He just has that gung-ho attitude of give it a try, make it happen. And again, I love the takeaways of not fearing failure, of fearing our regret more than we fear failure.
Speaker 2:So if you have been waiting for permission, take this episode as your sign. You don't need anyone to co-sign on your dreams, your ambitions, your desires. You can go after them. Of course, you may need to check in with your significant other, because I don't want to get in trouble with them. But, friends, I want to thank you so much for joining me and joining Mark on this conversation. I can't wait for Mark to come back and chat with us because he's got again so much knowledge that we could dive deeply into.
Speaker 2:I want to hear from you what kind of dreams have you had where you've gone after them, with maybe all of the fear still present, but you went and chased after your dreams. And if you had a spectacular failure, I want to hear about that as well, how you picked yourself up. You saw it as an opportunity to come back and make yourself stronger and better than before. So if you have those kinds of stories, I want you to share in the group community page or you can send me an email at info at timeforbrunchcom, because I cannot wait to chat more with you.
Speaker 2:Friends, I want to thank you again and, as I've mentioned so many times before, our group community page is where the fun is at. So if you're not there, please do join us, because there's inspiration, there's Metal Mondays and, of course, there's a whole lot of encouragement and support for you to go after your big, audacious goals. If you have any questions for me, you know where to find me. So, with that said, in the words of Mark, you only live once. You might as well be sparkly. Thank you for joining Time for Brunch. If today's conversation sparked your interest, be sure to join our supportive online community. Don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletters to keep the inspiration flowing. It's packed with insights, stories and tips to fuel your journey of growth.
Speaker 1:Follow us, subscribe and stay connected. Until next time, keep smiling and let your journey shine.