Someone asked me, "What inspired you to follow fitness as a career path?" I finally found my words.
- Gregory Lomason
- Feb 6, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 9, 2022
In my life, there have been many different events that have led me to my career in fitness. As most kids do, the first was probably playing catch with my dad growing up. The second was a spring day in 6th-grade gym class. My coach Mr. Dexter brought me to the front of the class during track season and showed everyone my hurdle form. My eldest brother had the high-school record for 300m hurdles, and I'd been practicing my hurdle form since I was maybe 6.
Throughout high school, I played football and ran track. Track and field was my real passion, and the burning desire to beat my brother's record was constant in my mind. You see, I'd been told, since as far back as I can remember, that he had the 300 record. There were countless times I would be told to my face, or I'd hear through the grapevine that someone was going to beat my brother's record. No one ever did. After so long, you take responsibility for it upon yourself, and it kind of turns away from "beating" your brother's record to keeping the record in the family.
Each year and every season during high school, I would track my times, and I'd show a few seconds of improvement. That is until senior year of football season. My closest brother and I would ride almost 40 miles every night on our bicycles the summer previous. We would ride around playing a game of "ditch diving"; anytime a car would come, we'd dive in the ditch. Those 40 miles a night had me feeling faster than I ever had. Unfortunately, my ankles couldn't match my speed, and during practice (two days before the first game), I sprained my right ankle in a bad way.
Black, Blue, and Purple from the top of my calf to the sole of my foot, I was on crutches for 6 weeks, and then during one of my first games back, the same injury was done to my left. My football season was officially done, and Track was questionable. But that winter, I ran Track indoors and put in the work to try and get back into shape. That season my first event of the season clocked me at a 45sec, something I hadn't run since the end of sophomore year. It pissed me off more than anything, so I put in the work all season to get back; I didn't. The regular season ended, and I was still a second away from even tying my brother's record. However, I'd qualified for regionals.
On the day of regionals, I looked at the stat board. I was in the fastest heat, but I was ranked sixth by over a second at 43.5. I was put in lane 9; I can only remember being in lane nine maybe two times before, and that was in junior high. Highly uncomfortable, close to feeling dejected, and coming to the realization this was going to be the last 300 hurdles I would ever run, I made a decision. At that moment, I would do what I'd always been afraid of doing before; I was going to leave everything on that track.
I'd never puked from effort before, and I'd only ever come close once, but if today was that day, so be it. If I died that day from total exhaustion, then so be it. I was going to sprint from the second that gun went off until I crossed the finish line. Nothing but 100% effort, so help me, God. It was the last race I was ever going to run. What did I have to lose?
So, I set my spikes into my block. The official called out those words I'd heard a thousand times before, "on your mark" I knelt down, relaxed my neck; the nerves in my stomach hit like a swarm of angry hornets. They always did right before the gun in that space between time—no time else. "Get set," I raised in the air, my weight shifting to my thumbs, tension filling the space where nerves were, and that quiet stillness, that which can only be described as peace, filled my mind.
This was the first-moment earth stood still, it's this moment, frozen in time, where I can always find my peace. The moment when you have the weight of every decision you've ever made, come to a head. It's that split second, before everything you've ever worked for and everything you've ever wanted come together. "Bang!"
I don't remember much of that race. I only see it in flashes of memory framed with a hazy black outline. I only feel it in the moment of weightlessness between strides; I only hear it in the steady thump of my heart and white noise of wind on my morning jogs; only smell it carried on the southern wind when winter becomes spring; only taste it in that bitter metallic flavor of blood. From the second the gun went off, I never saw another person, but they were like wolves nipping at the heel in my mind.
I was ranked 6th by over a second in a 300m race. The likely hood of winning never even crossed my mind. The only thing that did was that this was the last 300m hurdle race I would ever run in my life, I'd be damned if, I didn't, this one time, actually give my 100% effort, no holds barred. I did win that race; I beat the guy ranked as 1st by over a second. 41.4 was my brothers record. My time that day was 41.2.
There were other instances before and even after that, which led me to my career in fitness. My dad's heart attack, my family's terrible health history, the things my family is genetically predisposed to, my sisters being involved in the medical field. There were family members who joined the military and constantly got shredded because of it. Then, there was my first job at a tea shop, my friends asking me for workout advice, and seeing the happiness that came to their faces when they saw results. The first entrepreneurial "job" I ever had with a company that made vitamin energy drinks.
Training people professionally and obtaining my certification came later. Realizing that I love the business of personal training and the freedom it offers me got me hooked. 10 years into training, and still I stay I stay. Why? I stay because of the people I've had the opportunity to work with. I've met thousands of people from every walk of life imaginable. I fell in love with humanity and how we fight for our ambitions—the struggle for life, the fight for happiness, the hope of new love. Everyone is yearning for something, and to be able to help others achieve even the smallest of those ambitions is what makes personal training worth it for me.
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