Welcome to Beyond Training, part one, the beginning.

How I went from overtraining and eating bags of 39 cent hamburgers to detoxing my body

and doing subten our Iron Man triathlons with less than 10 hours of training per week.

And yes, I thought twice about the title of this chapter.

Four hamburgers, two cheeseburgers, six hamburgers, four cheeseburgers, piled into the backseat

of the family suburban.

My two brothers and I shouted orders to our mom as we idled at the drive-through window

of McDonald's, 39 cent hamburger, 49 cent cheeseburger day, only rolled around once a week.

And when it did, boy, were we ever prepared.

We typically drive away with not just a meal for the evening, but 8 to 10 extra, greased

stained bags of burgers that we could keep in the fridge and dig into during the remainder

of the week when hunger struck.

Of course, we never skipped the vegetables.

As we devoured our burgers at the kitchen table, there would always be a salad bowl, that,

of iceberg lettuce and shredded carrots, stretched in salty, creamy oceans of ranch dressing.

Mmm, veggies.

When we weren't devouring our burgers, the three of us boys plowed through takin' bake

pizzas, giant sub sandwiches, and bathtub-sized bowls of peanut butter kept in crunch cereal.

And milk, of course, lots and lots of healthy cows milk for our growing bodies.

As a matter of fact, by the time I was 13 years old, I was guzzling nearly a gallon

of 2% milk every day from a big plastic supermarket jug.

After all, I had to support my newfound joy of hoisting 10 pound dumbbells, and swinging

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