FITNESS CONFIDENTIAL (20 page)
Read FITNESS CONFIDENTIAL Online
Authors: Vinnie Tortorich,Dean Lorey
(Mile 416.5–450.3 / Total Elevation Gain: 32,056’)
If the road to Kelso deserved honorable mention for crappiest road in America, the road to Amboy would win the thing hands down. Deep cracks, loose stones in the roadway like IEDs, it was a vicious spider web of broken concrete slabs held together by crumbling asphalt. The road felt like it was specifically designed to rattle every bone in my body and beat my crotch black and blue while threatening to push the bike seat into my esophagus through my ass. And that’s if I could even stay on the damn thing.
I kept my head down and ground on the pedals, hammering away at them like I hated them. My quadriceps screamed in agony. I was in so much pain that I only had two choices. Give up or get pissed.
I got pissed.
It was late in the race, but instead of keeping slow and steady, I pushed myself like a maniac even though the finish line was still hours away. I remembered this road from 2005 when I was crewing for David. It was rough then and that was when I was riding in a van that had full suspension on forgiving radial tires.
Now, I was on a carbon fiber bike with no suspension, riding on tires as hard as the asphalt they rolled over.
I beat that bike like a rented mule, trying like hell to ignore the terrible pounding my body was taking. The lower part of my back on my left side started to hurt. I’m guessing it was my spleen letting me know that it wasn’t having a good time. I tried to take my mind off it by concentrating on all the other pains. The ones in my knees, which felt full of broken glass. My swollen, blistered feet. Soon, I noticed a metallic taste in my mouth. It was familiar, but not coppery, like blood. Something else, something even harder to place …
Chemo.
I realized it was the phantom taste of the chemo that had been coursing through my body. I wanted to believe that I’d sweated it out months ago, but there it was, a shadow of its former self, to remind me of what I’d been through. I kept on, pounding away at the pedals until finally, miraculously, I ended up in the town of Amboy.
Legend has it that the whole, crappy town has been for sale for years. Never had a buyer. No one wants it. That’s pretty much all you need to know about Amboy. Truth is I’ve never been happier to see any place in my entire life, because it meant that Stage Seven was finally over.
Stage Eight—the final stage—was all that stood between me and the finish line.
(Mile 450.3–509.5 / Total Elevation Gain: 36,226’)
As I passed the last checkpoint and headed toward Twenty-Nine Palms, which was still almost sixty miles away, there was only one thing on my mind.
Toilet paper.
No, I didn’t have to go to the bathroom. After each competitor crossed the finish line, the race officials would string up a new piece of toilet paper for the next person to break through.
Seems trivial, right?
But, to me, that piece of toilet paper represented, not the five-hundred miles I rode to get to it, but the twelve-thousand miles of training just to take a shot at it. It represented all the Saturdays I had to wake up, bleary eyed, at 2 a.m. to ride until 2 a.m. the following morning. It represented all the dinners and concerts and movies with friends that I had to miss to keep up my schedule. It represented months of bone-tired exhaustion, of swollen feet, sore necks and calloused hands. It represented the sacrifice of Serena, who I’d started dating in the middle of this, and her willingness to put up with my mistress, the bike. It represented the loyalty of my crew and their selflessness as they gave up their weekend and time with their families to help me on my mad endeavor. Most of all, it represented becoming strong again, being alive.
I know that sounds corny, but so do a lot of true things.
“You’re in twentieth place,” David had said to me all the way back at the checkpoint in Baker. As soon as he’d said it, I knew what I had to do. Finish no worse than twentieth. I figured that if no one ever passed me, it meant I was still moving forward and if I kept moving forward, eventually I was going to cross the finish line.
As I made my way up Sheephole Summit, a climb only made tough due to the fatigue caused by the four-hundred-and-seventy miles that came before it, I began to get nervous. Even though the finish line wasn’t in sight, it was within my grasp, and the sport was littered with stories of riders cramping up, crashing out or collapsing from pure exhaustion just a few short miles from the end.
That wasn’t going to happen to me.
As much as my body screamed “stop!” my mind screamed “you will not DNF!” I’d told David that I had demons chasing me across the desert and I did, but they came in funny shapes.
Those horrible nuns from my childhood were there, telling me I was a failure, mocking the way I spoke, saying get the grits out of your mouth.
The kids in my elementary school were there, beating me up, taunting me by calling me “Vinna.”
My cancer was there, telling me that my body had turned on me, that it wasn’t what it used to be, that it could come back at any time and take me out whenever it wanted to.
But, mostly, the seductive voice of my own self-doubt was there, telling me that there was no need to do this to myself, that it was pointless, that I was a loser, that it would be better for everyone if I just called it a day.
Then I realized that I was the luckiest man on Earth because I was getting another shot. How could I be a loser? I beat fucking cancer. Not only that, I was getting a chance to do something hardly anyone gets to do—redeem myself by trying again. Most people, including me, get lost in the grind of daily life and plan to do the things they really want to do “someday.”
But, for me, someday was today.
Over the years, I’ve had clients who wanted to set me up in business or asked me to come work at their companies for tons of money. They thought I was wasting my life as a trainer. But I didn’t think I was wasting my life. I valued what I was doing. I didn’t take the money route. I took this route.
And I was going to see it to the end.
I crested the top of Sheephole Summit and enjoyed the breeze on my face as I shot down the other side. At the bottom, I took a right-hand turn and found myself facing the sleepy desert town of Twenty-Nine Palms. The only thing that stood between me and the finish line was forty miles of asphalt. Unfortunately, most of those forty miles were uphill and into the wind.
I kept pedaling.
As I did, I thought about Jack LaLanne who, all those years ago in Bayou Lafourche, spoke volumes to me through a television set. I wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying, but what he was doing. He showed me, a kid that felt completely hopeless, that you couldn’t control the world but you could control you.
And I thought about Joe Bonadona, the first guy that ever treated me with respect. A man who taught me more about life than fitness and, trust me, he taught me a lot about fitness. I even thought about his cinderblock gym and how hot it got in there. Was it possible that Joe’s no-frills, gut-through-it regimen was helping me all these years later?
Yeah, I figured. It was.
And then, there in the distance, halfway up a hill, I saw something I’d been dying to see for what seemed like years. Its real name was the Best Western Gardens Hotel but, as far as I was concerned, it was the summit of Everest, the gold medal ceremony of the 1980 U.S. Men’s Olympic hockey team, and the finals at Wimbledon all rolled into one. Most of the year it was just a crappy motel in the desert, but that day it was the finish line of the 2008 Furnace Creek 508.
Exhausted, covered in sweat, salt and sand, with swollen hands and feet, I sailed into the parking lot in front of the hotel where the race officially ended, only to find that they didn’t even have a makeshift toilet paper finish line waiting for me.
Didn’t matter. Something even better was waiting.
My friends.
My crew was there, cheering me on. So were a handful of scattered spectators. And then, to my surprise, I saw my good friend Mehran, who had not been able to crew for me because of his father’s illness. As it turned out, his dad had stabilized, so he’d gathered up a handful of my best friends—Jonathan, Steve, Glen and Christina—packed them into his small plane and flew them out to meet me.
I’d finished in twentieth place.
But my final standing didn’t matter a lick. Hell, as far as I was concerned, there was more honor in finishing last than first. In fact, one of my friends, Steve Gray, is legendary for always completing the race mere minutes before the deadline. That guy is my hero. I was on the course for thirty-three hours over a single night. I couldn’t even imagine adding another night.
Compare that to Steve.
He’d run the race multiple times and, every year, he was on the course for nearly forty-eight hours over two nights. Want to talk about heart, guts and stamina? You can’t do it without talking about Steve Gray.
I kissed Serena, took photos with my friends and then headed into my room at the hotel for a nice, cold shower.
Finally, it was finished. Not just the race, everything. The nuns, the bullying, the demons chasing me across the desert.
Gone. Done. Over.
And so is this book.
I’ve enjoyed the journey and I hope you have, too. Now I think I might pour myself a glass of scotch—but only one. After all, I have to be up at 4 a.m. I have clients to meet and a training schedule to keep.
Next year’s 508 is just around the corner.
Dean and I faced a dilemma when we sat down to write this book. We hated a lot of the other diet and fitness guides out there, mostly because they took a simple idea and stretched it out to book length. I wanted to help people with something I really believed in, the concept of No Sugar, No Grains. Sure, it requires some explanation … but a whole book? Boring as hell, right?
After much thought (and watching Shakira videos—she’s right, hips really don’t lie) we decided to write only as much about No Sugar, No Grains as we felt was essential and entertaining. In other words, we tried to get rid of all the boring stuff and write about everything else. We didn’t mind if it was raunchy or painful, as long as it was always true. Anthony Bourdain’s
Kitchen Confidential
was an inspiration. We hope you liked it and found it helpful, inspiring, and fun. As you might guess, we didn’t do it alone. I have some people I want to thank, and so does Dean.
I want to thank my parents, Marie and Vincent “Cy” Tortorich. As schoolteachers, they taught me that education is everything. My mother, in particular, shared with me her love of books.
I also want to thank Gill Fuller. There comes a time in everyone’s life where you have to accept help. She gave it to me when I needed it. I had no way to thank her for everything she did, which is why I’m glad I wrote this book. It gives me a chance to thank her now.
I also want to thank the real ladies behind the fictional names Dr. Deborah and Dr. Anne. Without them, I wouldn’t be here today. And by “wouldn’t be here” I mean “wouldn’t be alive.” Thank you both.
And, finally, most importantly, I want to thank the love of my life, the woman who can make me laugh and cry, Serena Scott Thomas. Thank you for putting up with me through this whole process. I really couldn’t have done any of this without you. I love you, honey.
Dean Lorey here. I just wanted to poke my head in and thank my wife, Elizabeth Lorey. Writing a book is complicated enough, but self-publishing one takes a ton of time and energy. As always, she was terrific throughout. We met over twenty years ago on the set of
Friday the 13
th
part 9: Jason Goes To Hell
and have been together ever since. I started losing my hair during that movie, but I gained a wonderful wife. I figure that’s a pretty good trade. I love you, hun.
Fitness trainer Vinnie Tortorich has been Hollywood’s “go-to” guy for celebrities, athletes and everyday people for over 22 years. After hosting
TALKING FITNESS
(New Orleans’ top-rated radio program), he came to Beverly Hills where his guest shot on
THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW
made it the 7th most watched episode of all time. His
AMERICA’S ANGRIEST TRAINER
podcast reaches hundreds of thousands of listeners, who tune in weekly for his r-rated diet and fitness advice as well as his epic rants.
Writer/Producer Dean Lorey was nominated for an Emmy for his work on
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
. His film and TV credits include
MAJOR PAYNE
,
MY WIFE AND KIDS
and many more. His first novel,
NIGHTMARE ACADEMY: MONSTER HUNTERS,
won “Best Children’s Novel of the Year, 2008″ from the SCIBA. The series is in development at Universal Studios and is published in over 20 countries. Currently, he's an Executive Producer on the upcoming David E. Kelley CBS show
THE CRAZY ONES
starring Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar.
To stay current with the latest on Vinnie and Dean, you can follow them at their websites.
Vinnie:
www.vinnietortorich.com
Dean:
www.deanlorey.com