Hello I’m Andy Florint
Introduction
Andy Florint is not my real name. The reason for this, I’m still employed and I don’t want that my boss knows what I do in my spare time. At least as long as I work for him.
That said, I am 50 (2018). This is nothing special you might say. Millions of people have reached this age and survived it. That’s right, but for me it’s special, because my 50 birthday was a wake up call to start living again. Living for me means doing things I love. Sport and hopefully inspiring other people to achieve their personal (sport) goals.
Mens sana in corpore sano. A healthy mind in a healthy body. This was no longer true for me. With every year sitting in front of a computer screen and doing less and less sport my health and fitness went down faster and faster. I started to ask questions like:
What to do to get fit again?
What does fit mean for me?
How to overcome my sedentary way of life?
How to loose body fat?
How to overcome mental blockades?
How to eat healthy?
How to stop stuffing in whole chocolate bars?
What sport means for me and my life?
How to get flexible and stay this way?
Is it possible to be strong and be as well an endurance athlete?
How to put more sport in my tight schedule?
etc.
Personal Story
I was always a sporty person. As a child I played handball. With 16, inspired by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Steve Reeves, I became a bodybuilder, sort of. Later I started rock climbing with friends. Wolfgang Güllich and Kurt Albert where then my heroes. In the 90’s snowboarding started to become popular among my friends and for sure I was on board (literally).
My “normal” career path was totally different. I became an telecommunication engineer in 1994 and started working 9 to 5. Now I had money, but less time for sport. With a coworker I began to run and we did a couple of 10k, Half Marathon and Marathon races.
Not sure if working as an engineer was the right path, I started studying sport in 1996 and trained for an Ironman. The legendary Ironman race from 1995 with Mark Allen and Thomas Hellriegel was also a reason to try the triathlon path. I was really impressed by their performance and the whole Ironman story. Eventually I finished four Ironman races, 1997 in Zurich (Switzerland), 1998 in Roth (Germany), 1999 in Forster (Australia) and 2001 in Klagenfurt (Austria). New introduced tuition fees and loss of my good payed part time job forced me to terminate my sport studies already in 1998. 9 to 5 again and less time to train for the Ironman races.
2002 I took a year off and traveled around Australia with my girlfriend. Without any sport, expect some hikes through the great Australian nature, a natural miracle came our way. A couple of month later, back in Germany, our son was born and I had to reconsider my whole life. Earning money for our little family was now my highest priority and sport nearly disappeared in my life. I tried to jog with the buggy, but it was not my thing. Nevertheless I tried to stay fit, with push-ups, sit-ups and things like that, but all very unstructured.
Faster than I could blink, our second son came into our life. Now more and more playtime was on the agenda and the older the two became, the more physical demanding the playing got. Soccer, skateboarding, skiing, climbing, surfing, mountain biking etc.. They want to try everything. Which was and is good. As they get older (15 and 12 now), dad is playing a decreasingly role in there sport life. For example in snowboarding, although they started both last winter, I can hardly follow them any more. Mountain biking the same, especially downhill. I can only close my eyes, when I see them flying down the bike park. So they get more and more independent and this opens up new possibilities for me. I have now more time for doing my things. Especially endurance workouts, but not solely.
So I invite you to follow my journey to get and stay fit, not only physically, but as well mentally. On the way we can learn a ton of things and as a bonus you don’t have to make the same mistakes as I probably will do.
Enjoy!
