Alberto of Crossfit GetSome 365 Talks About Opening His Gym and being Burpee King

Good Morning Fringe Fam. Peter Keller hear from Fringe Sport and this morning I am talking with Alberto Medellin of Crossfit Get Some 365. He's in Bacliff, Texas which is quite near League City and you can almost call that a suburb of Houston. So if you're trying to figure out where this is...kind of near Houston. Alberto, how are you doing this morning?

Alberto:  I'm doing well, doing well.

That's great to hear So, let's just dive into this. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you became a box owner.

Alberto: Alright, I think I have an interesting story. I work in IT, my day-to-day, my 9 to 5. I'm a contractor out here at NASA. I started running to lose weight in 2012 and started running longer and longer distances. In 2014 I wanted to build (muscle), I'd lost weight, about 35 pounds, and I needed to build some muscle, so a friend of mine told me about Crossfit and it was at Crossfit GetSome365. And there was a previous owner and they'd been open since 2012 also. So I started working out there and in 2014 started running Ultra marathons around that time. Last year, the owners were selling the gym. I had just gotten married to my wife in February and we decided to just take that leap of faith. So we wanted to really just do it to keep the gym open, because they were thinking about closing it and we were just really connected with everyone there.

We wanted to keep (the community) going, so we dove in and my wife and I run the Box. I coach most of the classes in the morning and in the afternoons, late afternoons, we're kind of closed in the middle of the day when we're at work, but it works for us. We're a smaller box and it works for us and we love it.

Wow, that is pretty awesome and interesting. So if you work in IT at NASA, can you tell people that you're a rocket scientist?

Alberto: Sure, I can tell them that, but the interesting thing about the contract that I work on is we directly support, I think really  most of the contracts out there, directly support the international space station. We have systems, and IT storage that support video and still imagery from the international space station. So it's pretty cool to be around a lot of that equipment and see live feeds that are very high definition. You know, of outer space. You know it's different when you see it on the news, on TV. But when you see it in high def, directly live feed from the international space station it's kind of awe inspiring.

I love it! So, we're getting off on a little tangent, but I gotta ask. The people who think the moon landing didn't happen. Where are you on that?

Alberto: Well, I don't know, I don't want to offend any of your listeners, but I put those probably in the same category as with those people who think the earth is flat.  So...

So suffice to say you think the earth is round. You're one of those guys.

Alberto: Yes, yes

Okay, okay, I see how it is.

Alberto: Yeah

I'm just kidding. I do believe the earth is round, but wanted to throw that at ya! So a couple of things to dig into, that actually is an interesting back story. So, are you currently working in IT and running the box on the side? Am I understanding that correct?

Alberto: That's right, I love working here at NASA too because my schedule is flexible. But we have morning class, early in the morning for those early birds at 5, 6, and 8 a.m. And then in the evenings at 5, 6, and 7 p.m. So, it works for us, and I have a couple coaches that pitch in and help out, so it's perfect. For our demographic here.

Now, is this something that you would like to at some point run the box full time, or conversely would you like to just hire out a general manager or something like that? Or is this situation of having your IT day job, of being a rocket scientist, and then running the box on the side, is that ideal for you now and kind of into the future?

Alberto: Yeah, going into this, my wife and I, that was one of the first things that we discussed. What were the long term plans, with the box. I know eventually I would love to do it full time. And have the box open more hours and attract maybe some other people that don't necessarily, can't get in in the mornings, or in the evenings. And then eventually too, because we're talking about having a child together as well, so hiring out a general manager or another head coach to take on some more of those slots. To kind of free up my time as well, but eventually yes. I would like to get away from IT and have the box as full time.

Awesome, I love to hear it. Now, couple of other things that were interesting that you mentioned. You mentioned doing Ultra marathons and also doing Crossfit. Refresh me a little bit, did you do Ultra marathons before you got into Crossfit, or afterwards?

Alberto:  Yeah, so I started, I ran my first marathon 2013. I had my first trial class of Crossfit around the end of that year. Then really started to get into Crossfit about February of 2014 and at that time I had been watching some friends running 50K's, 50 milers, 100 milers and that really just kind of peaked my interest. Because I like doing things that really push my body very, very far or past limits that I think should be set. But I keep going. Anyway, started Crossfit kind of first, while I was training for my first Ultra. My first Ultra was a 60K in June, actually near Austin. It was the Captain Karl's race series.

Oh yeah, I got a bunch of friends who have done that. Great race series. So how do you feel that Crossfit, which in a typical box environment is hour long classes at maximum. How does that compliment the Ultra training?

Alberto: In the beginning, I was running a lot more, so my strength or my gains in that area especially strength endurance, I think it came a lot slower. Because I was spending a lot more time running so many miles on trails and on the road. But I started to kind of switch more in about 2016. I started focusing more on lifting. I think that that helped my running. So I was running less, and I was lifting more. But I didn't completely discard running altogether, because I was still running Ultras almost one or two a month. So, I started to see that doing some more lifting and building my strength was helping me. I wasn't necessarily getting faster, but it wasn't hurting as much and I wasn't as tired and my recovery was a lot better. So I don't think, I haven't found the perfect balance yet, but I've found a very good balance at this point.

Just out of curiosity are you still training for ultra's or still running ultras these days?

Alberto:  Yes I ran recently, I ran an Ultra, it's called the Georgia Death Race. It's a point-to-point 72 miler and in Northern Georgia, over those mountains there. Kind of where the Appalachian Trail starts, so, yeah. I have a 100 miler scheduled in August in Utah. So, I still train, but its mainly long runs on the weekends, maybe one or two short runs during the week, but it's mainly Crossfit during the week.

How many hours do you think you're training in the Crossfit style per week? And then how many hours do you think you're spending in traditional running training, whether it be long runs or speed work or something like that?

Alberto: I think Crossfit is anywhere from four to six hours a week. So that's probably three or four times during the week and then we have Monster Mash on Saturdays that usually lasts a little bit longer than an hour. And then, running is probably 2-3 hours a week. That's a long run on weekends, maybe Saturday morning, early Saturday morning, or Sunday and then some shorter runs maybe 20, 30 minutes runs during the week, maybe one or two.

Wow! That's amazing, one more thing and then we'll get off this Ultra running. It's just fascinating to me. Is your wife a runner as well?

Alberto: When we first met, she was, but then she was dealing with some sciatic nerve issues and that sidelined her for a while. Now she's just kind of into, we adopted a vegan diet recently. So, she cooks for me now.

Wow! A vegan, Crossfitting, Ultra marathoner. That's got to be a small population there.

Alberto:  It is a small population. My sons make fun of me all the time because in the beginning I was talking about it a lot. So you hear that joke, you know when a vegan Crossfitter walks into the room, what do they tell you about first? So it's interesting.

That's amazing, alright so now I'm really curious about the vegan thing. And I'm open minded although my personal, nutritional diet follows more like classic, Crossfit, paleo-ish type stuff. So why veganism.

Alberto: Well, we, so my wife, her family has some predisposition to diabetes. For her, she wanted to just really research and do whatever she could to kind of prevent that. You know, later in life and she was actually vegan before we met in 2014. We started dating, and at that time I was smoking brisket every weekend, eating ribs. I ate everything at that time. Kind of brought her back over to the dark side. But then we did watch you know, a few documentaries on Netflix and kind of took those with a grain of salt. But it did get us to ask some questions, you know, "What are we putting into our bodies?", "Is it healthy?", "Is it fuel or just because we love the taste?" And so, I was a little skeptical at first, just, you know, I'm in that, I need all this protein to build muscle and to do all these things and to support my athletic lifestyle, whatever that might be. But then after researching, getting on that protein from plants and from nuts and from lentils, and beans and all these things that had high amount of protein.

So it kind of shifted to okay, let's have this, let's try it out for a few months. We got our blood work done. And then about four, five months later, because I was worried about vitamin deficiency and things like that. Got my bloodwork done after that and my doctor was high fiving me and saying "man this is really good, all your numbers are great. Keep doing what you're doing." And so, I was seeing that improvement there and then also my recovery which, that was the biggest physical improvement I could see. Being able to run an Ultra on Saturday, and literally be doing thrusters and back squatting a few days later. And my body feels good, I don't have the injuries. I feel great.

Couple of quick questions off of that. So you told me before you're probably doing four to six hours of Crossfitting a week and then two or three hours of running. Do you keep a pretty tight look at your macros, your full work intake and your protein intake?

Alberto: Not necessarily, I used to, log everything on MyFitnessPal app, but that kinda started to get a little OCD about it. I wasn't really enjoying what I was doing. So now it's more based on, how I feel. If I'm eating something that I think is higher fat, vegans eat a lot of carbs. Me working out that's great, but I think like my wife for instance, she doesn't work out, or is not as active as she'd like to be. She's dealing with some injuries, but she has to limit her carbs intake or she starts to gain weight. And so, I don't count carbs, I don't count calories, I don't pay attention to like a macro breakdown. I think if I did, I probably could dial it in a little bit, but I feel good where were at right now.

Awesome and just one other question about your diet. Are you eating like basically all the time? It seems to me like with that much work load that you're putting through, and then you know moving a few potential sources that are high in calories, and protein. Are you just chowing down constantly?

Alberto: I don't think I eat anymore than I did before. You know I pretty much drink green smoothie every morning. I eat a lot of nuts and berries and fruit because that's kind of like my carb intake. I do eat a lot of rice and sometimes some pasta, but then just lots and lots of green vegetables. But I do snack throughout the day, but I think pretty much a lot of us do whether you're on a vegan diet or not. If you're athletic or you're active, you kind of just eat or graze all day. I don't think I eat anymore than I normally did before.

Got it, and one final question and then we'll get off this vegan thing.

Alberto: No problem

Do you consume alcohol recreationally?

Alberto: Yeah, on the weekends. You know I like Mexican beer. (Laughter) So I probably drink a Modelo or two, on the weekends, and then at gatherings and things like that. I don't necessarily abstain from alcohol. I did for a period of time in 2012, I think I went maybe 6 months. I really liked the way I felt. I think I got a lot more mental clarity at that time, at least I felt that way. I felt sharper. On the weekends I can throw back one or two.

Got it. Alright, this has all been super fascinating to me actually. So let's move on to another thing. So you mentioned that you and your wife run the box together. Does she also have a day job so to speak?

Alberto: Yeah, we both work for the same contractor at NASA.

Alright, two rocket scientists. I love it!

Alberto: Yeah

How have you liked working with her? Like, and the practice the part of the world where I come from...I love my wife, love her to death, love love love but probably not good for us to work together, so...

Alberto: Yeah and I know she's going to hear this or read it somewhere, but we're both honest with each other. She helps out more on the backend on the back office with the books and helping me pay the bills and kind of keeping me on track when things are due. I mean, that's what's great about owning this box, and that's one of the things we really looked at when we were thinking about purchasing it. We don't have a lot of expenses. I think our biggest expense is our lease. That's it, I mean we have a few other smaller expenses, but it's great. It just kind of runs itself. But she helps with keeping the books up to date and motivating me. She's my motivation. So, I love working with her. I do the majority of the work, which is fine. But she helps out in some very important places that I don't really want to think about sometimes and she thinks about them for me.

Sounds like an awesome partnership, brother. Alright, one more thing and then we're gonna pull this to a close. You had mentioned in the pre-interview that you are the Burpee King. Tell me about that.

Alberto:  Yeah, so when I started, my fitness routine in 2012 and I was running obstacle course races around the end of that year and then it was some really crazy partners, some crazy people who just go out to do burpees. I had never really done a burpee prior to 2012 and so we started this burpee challenge. Basically 100 burpees for a hundred days consecutively. If you missed a day you had to start back over at day one. I just kind of fell right in and we started a Facebook group. Once we reached 100 burpees or the 100th day, we decided that we were going to do 1000 burpees on the 100th day. So, I've been doing burpees quite some time by that day for 99 days, so on my 100th day I had a system down and I would do basically, here's the secret, it's 10 burpees every minute for one minute. So I could do about 10 burpees maybe in 23 seconds, 24 seconds and you got a 35 second rest. It was great, I did 1000 burpees in about an hour and 42 minutes.

And so, that was pretty amazing to me. I loved it. I got that muscle memory and so when a few other members of this group reached their 100th day, we did 2000 burpees. That took a lot longer. So I've done a 2000 burpee session in the evening. I don't know if you have, I don't know how many other people love to do burpees, but every time I have them, I program them on the WOD. I get a lot of complaining.

So I would say I don't mind burpees, but just hearing you talk about this is giving me anxiety. (Laughter) That's a lot of burpees. God bless you! I can tell that it works for you (Laughter) Awesome. Well Alberto we've got to this to a close. Is there anything else that you'd like to tell our audience?

Alberto: You know, I just think that whatever you want to do in life and I was kind of thinking about this - pre-interview. I don't know how much you'll appreciate this, but I'll be 43 this year. I don't think it's ever too late to just go after what you want. Have a plan, and move forward. Sometimes you don't even need to it, but just move forward. Do what you love. Because if you do what you love, it doesn't even really feel like work. I don't want to sound like a, you know one of those motivational posters, but that's kind of how I live my life.

Alberto, I love it! So I found you guys on line at CrossfitGetSome365.com. I also saw you guys on Facebook, so we're going to link that up everywhere. If somebody wants to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do so. Is that just through your Facebook page?

Alberto: Yeah, Facebook page, or the website that you mentioned. You know because we do work during the day, but we can respond to e-mail very, very quickly. So there's a feedback button I think on the website, or drop us a Facebook message. We respond very quickly that way. Phone Calls are a little bit later in the day, once we get some free time. But e-mails are usually the fastest way.

I love it! This is has been a pleasure, kind of a wide ranging interview, a little bit wider than we normally go, but a lot of just fascinating stuff for me.

Alberto:  Thank you

So this has been Peter Keller from Fringe Sports, and Alberto Medellin from CrossFit Get Some 365. I always tell people to go lift something heavy. You gonna go tell em to take a run? What do you want them to do, do some burpees?

Alberto: Do some burpees.

Do some burpees.

Alberto: When in doubt, burpee out.

When in doubt, burp it out. I love it!