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I like graphs.

When the whole Total Quality Management phase blew through in the 90s, I got a little swept up. It makes sense to me. You can learn a lot by taking an honest look at the numbers.

Numbers will show you success and failure.

I’ve never been athletic or even active. I fought my weight for 20 years in the Air Force and when I retired, I threw in the towel. Within a year, I was over 300 pounds. I know “weight is just a number,” but that number was telling me I was very unhealthy.

I rounded up all the usual suspects, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. I remember telling my doctor that my father had died of a stroke at 60 and I was concerned the same would happen to me.

He said not to worry -- I would never make it to 60. I was 45 at the time.

So I started to diet and watched the pounds drop away. I wrote my weight down on a calendar every morning. It felt so good to see the numbers getting smaller which motivated me to keep going.

Eventually, I started exercising. That first day I walked around the block once. Soon, I did two. Then, I got a rowing machine and worked until I could go for 30 minutes, and then farther and then faster.

It took me a year to reach my goal weight and I continued to track my progress daily to maintain what I had achieved. Everything was well, except my numbers were now designed not to achieve, but to prevent. It seemed very negative.

Then a guy challenged me to try CrossFit. I soon realized that I had started out very sick and had become healthy … but I was not fit.

CrossFit taught me what “fit” means and that fitness can be measured. My numbers were back. I could watch my run times improve, weight number increase, WOD scores improve. I could show that I was improving. It was just like in the beginning of my diet watching the pounds melt away … incredibly rewarding.

Today, the progress isn’t as apparent. Getting a PR takes weeks or months of training. I like that it isn’t easy anymore. Nothing in life worth having comes easy.

Fast or slow, easy or not, I am still progressing. I understand that unless I live to be 107, I’m closer now to the end than the beginning. I recognize that the body diminishes over time and that my ceiling at 53 is lower than it was at 23. But I haven’t reached my ceiling yet.

The numbers show it.

-- Coach Daryl  

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