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UjENA FIT Club Running Interviews and articles with 100 Interesting People

Best Road Races and the UjENA FIT Club is speaking with 100 people who we feel have a lot to say about running, racing and fitness  We will give you background information as will as their insights into the future.  Be sure to post your feedback and comments.

Read All UjENA FIT Club Running Interviews

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The sport of Double Racing is about ready to Take Off!
Posted Thursday, February 19th, 2015
by Bob Anderson, publisher of Double Runner magazine (Photo Bob Anderson with world record holder Julius Koskei wearing the yellow... Read Interview
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2013 Ujena Fit Club Male Runner of the Year
Posted Monday, March 17th, 2014
The Chris Jones story is a running saga of epic proportions.  Don't try this at home! (Photo - Leadville 100... Read Interview
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Sharon Vos: Three in a Row
Posted Sunday, March 23rd, 2014
Aging ever so gracefully at age 59 and forging a career record that becomes ever more impressive, Sharon Vos is... Read Interview
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Julius Koskei: All In the Family
Posted Tuesday, November 5th, 2013
 By David Prokop Editor Best Road RacesJulius Koskei (pronounced Kos-kay), who set the current world record in the Double Road... Read Interview

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Roger Wright - Interview No. 19
Friday, February 17th, 2012
"I lost 150 pounds and then ran the Boston Marathon"
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Roger Wright is not your typical runner. Growing up on a rural farm in Maine, Roger's only brush with running was when his father ran the Boston Marathon in 1968. He was seven-years-old. So impressed with his father's accomplishment, he made a vow to someday run in his footsteps and complete it himself. "Training" started a few days later and it lasted for about a month. A maximum distance of approximately a 1/2 mile was achieved before calling it quits.

That would be the furthest distance he would ever run for the next 40 years. From childhood, Roger was always heavy, and as his age progressed, so did his weight. By the time he was in 7th grade, weight issues became a concern for his father who was a doctor and he started on the first of many failed diets. Beyond "gym" class, exercise was usually avoided and never enjoyed. By the time Roger enrolled in college, and the social activities that go with it, his weight broke the 200 pound barrier. Diets became a running joke with friends and weight watchers was more of a game than a real desire to change his life.

After graduating from college in Texas, Roger moved back up to Massachusetts and began his professional career in the mortgage banking field, eventually owning a mortgage company with his brother for 16 years. Somehow he convinced a beautiful woman to go out with him and eventually Mary became his wife. During that period, work became a priority and 12 hour days were the norm. As expected, his weight blossomed and by the time he hit 40, his weight broke the 300 pound mark and stayed there for the next seven years.

Photo: Roger at his front door June 7, 2008 weighing almost 300 pounds.

1. When did you realize you had a weight issue?
When I was 9 years old, I was at a department store getting school clothes and I asked my stepmother what size pants I wore and she said “Husky. It’s for big boys”. I continued to wear “husky” clothes until I was 47 years old.  

2. You hated running? and all any type of exercise?
Actually “hated” is probably the wrong word because that means that I actually ran at some point and I really hadn’t run more than quarter mile in my previous 30 years! Frankly I loathed any type of exercise and never even really liked walking that much. In high school, it was mandatory to be in a sport, so I joined the swim team because I figured that would use my legs the least.   

3. Why do you think you gained so much weight? How fast did it happen?

Simply put, I was lazy and liked to eat bad food. I gained the weight and increased my clothes sizes gradually so I never really noticed.  Even though my shirts were XXXL and my waist size ended up at 54, I didn’t actually think I was that heavy.  

4. How much were you eating at the time? How often were you eating and what were you eating?
I pretty much lived to eat so I would eat as much and as often as I could.  Typical day included three full meals with 2-3 of them being fast food, lots of soda and candy, chips, cakes, etc filling in the gap as snacks. When I cooked it was usually fried foods. I despised fruits and vegetables (with the exception of onion rings and French fries) and would rather starve than eat them.

5. Describe a typical day during this time.
Get up and have soda with caffeine (I don’t drink coffee) to wake me up. My commute to work was about 1 hour 15 minutes so halfway I would stop and have a breakfast sandwich, omelet, etc, and chocolate milk. Candy/snack around 10 AM. Lunch would be at any of the local fast food restaurants. I was a workaholic so I wouldn’t get home until 7-8 PM and then cook dinner for my wife and myself. TV until we went to bed.  

6. When you looked in the mirror who did you see?
For me, every mirror I looked into was always distorted which made me look heavier than I knew I was. Fortunately, as soon as I looked away from a mirror, the “true” image of myself came back to my mind. I remember about 10 years ago a friend commented “You really don’t know that you’re overweight”. I looked at him in disbelief and said “That’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life!” and it pretty much ended our friendship. Sadly he was 100% correct. 

7. What daily things could you not do because of your weight?
Stairs were always a challenge and I was very winded after one flight. I could never sit in a booth at a restaurant. On airplanes I had to smuggle a seat belt extender on and could never even think about lowering the tray table. I used to tie my shoes first and then put them on. There are plenty more but fortunately I have put most of them out of my mind.  

8. When did you decide to loose weight and why? How much did you weigh?
I’m only 5’6” and at my peak I was 318. Actually I was heavier than that but I was scared of scales.  I think that everyone who is overweight always wants to try and lose weight but most just give up because you normally don’t see immediate results. And when you do lose weight you end up rewarding yourself and putting the weight right back on plus a little more.  I had been on more than 200 diets, different weight loss programs, hypnosis, weight watchers four times and numerous health club but always ended up getting heavier.

In May of 2008, right after my 47th birthday, three things happened all in one week. First, my doctor called and told me that, in addition to high blood pressure and high cholesterol that I was now diabetic. The same day my sister in law told me that my nine year old niece Julia, who suffers from Cystic Fibrosis, would be going on the lung transplant list. The following day, my wife came home from work and told me that the new season of the show “The Biggest Loser” was casting for the upcoming season. 

That night, I was out cooking some ribs on the grill (ironically trying to gain weight for the next season of The Biggest Loser) and I came to the realistic conclusion that I was never going to be on the show and that both my health and Julias were in serious trouble. My dad had run the Boston Marathon in 1968 (I was seven) and even though I had always hated running, I had a dream of running it. Like an epiphany, I realized I could train for the Boston Marathon, lose 50 pounds and raise $3000 for Cystic Fibrosis. I went in and told my wife who looked at me like she has never looked at me before and said “I think it’s important that you do that. If you do, I will have a friend at every mile”. That’s all it took to start me walking.     

9. How did you decide running could help?
I needed a completely different approach to weight loss. Unlike every diet I had ever been on, it was no longer about how much weight I would lose but my focus switched to what I needed to do in order to run, walk or crawl across the finish line on Boylston St (finish line of the Boston Marathon). I had a little over 10 months.

I hated running so I started out walking three miles every day for a week. The first day it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes to walk three miles.  I vowed to improve on that each day. After a week, my friend/trainer Rick, walked the course with me. When we had walked 2.5 miles Rick told me to run as far as I could. I looked at him in disbelief and said “Really?” to which he replied “You’re going to be running the Boston Marathon so you really need to start running!” I made it 10 yards before I had to stop and catch my breath. I looked at him with tears running down my face and asked “What am I going to do?”  It took me about a month to run a half mile nonstop and another month to run a mile.

10. Did you have the support of your doctor to start running?
I didn’t go to a doctor until I was 44 years old. After my initial interview the first thing my doctor asked me was if I had ever considered Gastric Bypass surgery.  It offered extremely fast results and took little effort on my part to lose the weight I couldn’t seem to lose.   I decided against this approach.  When I told her my plan later, she was behind me 100% and did everything she could to help me out. I couldn’t have had a more supportive doctor.  

Photo: Roger running his first 5k 4.5 months after getting into running

11. Are you a jogger or a runner?
Definitely started out as a jogger (actually walker) but since I run races and continually push myself to be faster, I suppose I am a runner now. I must admit that I do like thinking of myself a runner.

12. What else did you do to lose weight?
I wrote down everything I ate!  Unfortunately just counting calories doesn’t really work so I took it a few steps further and broke everything I ate down into protein, carbohydrates and fats. I initially set my total caloric intake at 2000 but later  reduced it to 1400. That may seem rather drastic but my “fat” calories always maxed out before I reached total caloric allocation. It took me about three months to reprogram my mind at the way I looked at food.  I now look at food more as fuel for running and like a car, if you put bad gas, it won’t run as well as it was designed to run. I’m very far from perfect and I still like “bad” foods, but they are the exception instead of the rule.   

13. Did your family and friends think you could do it?
Actually, right after I started, there were those days that even I wondered if I could actually pull it off. That said, my wife Mary and my trainer Rick never had any doubts. After I ran Boston, I found out that about half my friends didn’t think I could do it. It’s kind of funny but I love hearing that and it continues to motivate me.  

14. What did you think of runners before you became one?
Quite simply, I despised them. Thinking back, I suppose I was just jealous of them because they were doing something that I couldn’t.  

15. Was it really tough to start running?
I never realized just how far 3 miles actually was. It really wasn’t that hot but by the first mile I had broken into a pretty good sweat. My wife met me at mile 1 to give me some water and I almost got in the car because I was so exhausted. Fortunately I gained my wits and told her to never let me get in the car. After I finished I had terrible shin splints, my shirt was soaked and I felt both bad and good. The next day there was a downpour and I almost didn’t open the door. Fortunately I gave up on excuses and my determination carried me the whole way.    

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Photo: Finishing the Boston Marathon

16. When did you think you could run a marathon?
August 16, 2008. It was a little over two months into my training and eight months before the marathon. Prior to that day, the longest I had run nonstop was about a mile. I had received an email from a friend asking how far I had run and I was too embarrassed to answer him. So on that day I got up and gave myself two options: run the entire three mile loop or die trying. It hurt like hell (both physically and mentally) but I continued to push myself the entire way. When I hit the driveway I screamed so loud that a neighbor down the street heard me over his lawn mower! I smiled, waved, walked up my driveway with tears streaming down my face, sat down at my computer and replied “three miles” to my friend’s message. It was at that point that I knew I would finish one way or another.

17. You decided to raise money for your niece Julia? 
Julia is the closest thing I have to a daughter. By the time she was nine she had already spent over 30 weeks in the hospital. Obviously I couldn’t qualify for Boston but fortunately the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation had a few charity numbers available.  I called them up, told them my plan and they agreed to let me use one of their numbers a long as I guaranteed to raise $3000. To their surprise, I gave them my credit card information on the spot. I ended up raising over $11,000 for that race and have raised over $40,000 for CF so far.  My life’s ambition is now raising as much money as I can for Cystic Fibrosis research.       

Photo:  Roger and his wife Mary in Toronto before he started running.

18. At what point did all your clothes stop fitting?
In October, My wife and I took a trip out to San Franciscoon vacation and it was on that trip that I became aware that things were changing. First a lot of my clothes were starting to get baggy, my belt was using holes that had never been used.   When I went shopping for clothes for the trip, I was kind of shocked that, for the first time in about 20 years, I was able to fit into XL shirts. (I now wear a medium shirt and my waist is now 30-32 inches.)

19. How was running changing your life? Did things change at work?
Running, plus the cross training I started doing (swimming, spin classes, and weight training), became my primary focus and every thing else was pretty much secondary, including work. I am very fortunate that I am self employed (mortgage broker) and work out of my home now. Technology has made my hours extremely flexible and I am able to work at 2 PM or 2 AM. Fortunately most of clients are lifelong clients or referrals from them so they all know my story and we work around it. Fortunately my training never got in the way, nor does it now even when I travel all over the place.     

20. How much weight did you loose before running the 2009 Boston Marathon?
When I had my epiphany of running Boston I weighed close to 300 pounds and started losing weight. Eventually I decided to go “public” with my plan and since I have this obsession with numbers, decided to start my record keeping on June 7th, 2008 (06.07.08). On that day I weighed 276.7 pounds. On April 7th 2009, ten months later and two weeks before Boston, I weighed 163.6 for a total loss of 113.1. Considering that I only lost 0.5 pounds the last month (March to April), it realistically took me 9 months to lose 112.5 pounds. Overall from my heaviest I lost about 150 pounds.   

21. What was your feeling when you finished?
Fortunately I live 2 miles from the Boston Marathon route so in my  training, I would spend many days running the course and imagining the incredible release of emotions when I crossed the finish line. Obviously for me, crossing the finish line, represented so much more than just the end of a race - in my mind it was a Hollywood movie and this was the final scene. Knowing that Julia, my wife Mary and my father would in the grandstand watching me finish just added to the drama and I had no doubt my tears would be flooding Boylston St. 

Maybe I was just exhausted, had gone way beyond threshold of pain or was just in disbelief that the 10 month journey was finally over, but the fact is that if someone had offered me $5000 to shed a single tear at that moment I would have lost. It was probably 30 minutes later when I finally saw my wife Mary that I broke down in tears and let everything go.     

22. Describe your life now.
Before June 7th, 2008, my life really focused more on my job and exercise was the furthest thing from my mind. Now exercise and training for races has almost become a priority and trips are usually planned around marathons and other races. Even social activities now tend to include my running friends more and more. In addition, I now try and do whatever I can to try and help inspire other people to make their lives healthier. Few things make my day more than receiving an email from a perfect stranger thanking me for helping inspire them. Seriously, life doesn’t get much better than that.

23. Others like Oprah lost a lot of weight and ran the New York Marathon. But she has gained back a lot of it.  Is that going to happen to you?
That is one of my greatest fears. I know quite a few people who have lost a lot of weight but have put it back on. For essentially all of my adult life, I have been morbidly obese and never really lost a significant amount of weight so that looming fear of putting it back is always there.

After I ran Boston, I found myself quickly slipping back to my old ways and within two weeks, had put on about 15 pounds thanks in part to the post marathon rest where walking up the stairs was still a challenge and I was fooled into believing that I could eat anything and it wouldn’t have an effect on me.

24. Do you think about your weight daily?
I no longer weigh myself. When I ran Boston I bought a medium size t-shirt at the expo and I told myself that if I ever put it on and it doesn’t fit then I know I need to lose weight. I put it on this weekend and it fits fine.

25. How much are you currently running? I know right now you have a calf issue, how are you dealing with that?
Fortunately my calf issue has gone away (knock on wood) and my mileage is usually around 30-40 miles per week. I’m constantly in a state of tapering, recovering and training for my next marathon, all at the same time. In addition I still do spin classes and weight training 3-4 times a week, elliptical trainer 2-3 times a week and yoga at least once a week.

26. What if you had not found running?
All joking aside, I probably wouldn’t be around to answer that question. My health was in very bad shape and getting worse ever day. Running is now a big wonderful part of my life.

27. What running goals do you have?
After I ran Boston , I found out it was a part of the World Marathon Majors so I set a goal to run all five of them. In addition to Boston, I have already run Chicago, London and New York. That only leaves Berlin and I will run that on September 30 of this year. I have also run three Ultra marathons but I plan on running a 100 miler within the next year or so. 

28. What advice do you have for a person that is more than 100 pounds over weight?  What is the first thing they should do?
I actually thought about this just this morning while I was running. You have to run up a hill before you can run down it. Changing a lifetime of obesity will not happen overnight and unfortunately it’s not that easy to make the change. In the past I have always tried to climb up the “hill” of weight loss but because I never saw immediate results, I gave up. The bottom line is it takes time but if you have true desire and focus, it will happen and eventually you will be able to run up the hill and down the other side. That is your reward for all your efforts.    

How does someone start? Just like I did, you have to walk before you run. Go out, find a three mile route and walk it for a week.  After a week start at some point (1.5 miles seems to be a good point) and just run as far as you can. The next day start at the same point and push yourself to go just a little further (I added a telephone pole). Eventually you will run the entire 1.5 miles home. After that just start running before the 1.5 mile mark and eventually you will run the entire 3 miles. I like 3 miles because it’s just about the same distance as a 5K and I think it’s important to set an initial goal of running a 5K because once you run it, you will be on top of the world and ready for your next race. 

29. Because you run, can you eat as much as you want now?
I think the problem with diets is once you go off of them (was usually 2-3 days in my case) I would then reward myself and start eating everything bad again. You have to live life, go out with friends, vacations, etc so that will screw up any diet. I think as long as you eat “good” 80% of the time then you can enjoy whatever you want the other 20%.

30 How many years do you think you have added to you life because you found running?
I asked my doctor that question and she said that based on my previous condition versus where I am now, somewhere around 20!  Mentally I think it’s more like 30! I was happy on the outside but inside I was very worried about my health. I actually put off going to a doctor until I was 43 because I was scared about what they would find.

31. Describe a typical day now.
I think of exercise like I think of brushing my teeth. I would never go a day without brushing my teeth so I usually never go a day without some form of exercise unless I’m injured.

I will always start my day with 1-2 hour of exercise. I normally do spin classes 3-4 times a week, weights and core work 3 times a week, yoga once a week and obviously lots of running. In the evening, I go work out with my wife at the club about 3 times a week for about an hour on the elliptical trainer, one of the other machines or sometimes another spin class.   

32. What other interests do you have?
Originally photography but since I started running, I have really been getting into videography and making videos of races. I have a passion for sports cars, collect art (mainly pop art like Warhol, Haring, etc) and love music (mainly alternative and old school “punk” from the late 70s, early 80s).   

33. How many races do you like to run annually!
Not enough! I usually run 5-6 marathons each year, 2-3 half marathons, a couple of long distance relays like Ragnar, and 5 -10 other races. Lately I have been running to races (usually 5Ks), run the races and then run home. This year I’m trying to run a marathon or half marathon every month. 

34. Is your race time important to you?
Yes, on a couple of different levels. On the one hand I continually try and break four hours in a marathon, but every time something goes wrong. My PR right now is 4:12 and every time I run I tell myself I’ll do it this time. Someday I’ll break 4 hours and then I’ll become obsessed with 3:45!   

Photo: Roger and his niece Julia after finishing the Boston Marathon

35. If I gave you one wish that would come true, what would that be?
That’s simple – find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis so my niece Julia (and anyone else with CF) lives a long and healthy life.

36. How do you like the Ujena Fit Club?
I love the Ujena Fit Club! There have been many days that I have pushed myself further or worked out a little longer just to move up in the Fit Club categories (ie more miles or more time in workouts). There are some days that I really don’t feel like working out but I don’t want to get a “blank” up there so I will always do something, even if it’s just a mile.

37. What do you think of my goal to run 50 races this year?
As far as running 50 races to celebrate 50 years of running, I think that is extremely impressive and a fantastic goal! You probably aren’t aware, but I am extremely inspired by you and your commitment to running. Thank you for everything that you have done for the sport of running and your commitment to help others become healthier.   

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