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Jim Toledo has been an athlete his whole life - soccer, basketball, football, and baseball as a kid. Sprints and jumps on his high school track team, and played softball, basketball, and indoor soccer leagues all through his 20s and 30s.
When the people he played with got busy with lives and kids, he went looking for an individual sport.
Running had never stuck - shin splints, and "wow, running sucks" - until a friend talked him into a 5K he was having trouble filling.
That 5K turned into a 10K, then a half marathon, then a bike, learning to swim, and a triathlon. Fifteen years later, he has four full Ironman finishes and more than ten 70.3s.
He came up lifting weights in the heyday of pre-workouts, but nothing on the market fit an endurance workout - a target heart rate, zone two, no tingly face - so he mixed his own from five, six, seven different tubs.
With a friend from the supplement industry, he put it all in one: Starting Block, by Zone 2 Endurance, now celebrating its first year.
He talks about six months of manufacturers and taste tests, research-backed doses, about 120 milligrams of instant caffeine and 67 of time-release, the name that came from his track days, and what it has done for his summer runs in the heat and humidity.
Then the races: Ironman Florida in 2021 - five friends in an Airbnb, an epic swim where 400 people were pulled from the water, and his Ironman PR - and Ironman Wisconsin in 2022, the race that broke him: 50 degrees and rain all day, a pulled hip flexor at mile 16, and a second lap through the University of Wisconsin football stadium with nobody else in it.
Plus a bagel with peanut butter and a package of ramen noodles on race morning, the double cheeseburger, fries and Sprite he craves after an Ironman, his watch and his data, the ASICS Megablast and Novablast in his rotation, Honey Stinger waffles and gels, a training run that ended with a sprint home to the backyard hose, his running buddy Rob and his 14-year run streak, cupping his own IT band, and lifting heavy at 48.
His advice to new runners: find your people - every city has a running group for every pace - and just don't quit.
For the first time in a long time, he's signed up for nothing, and running with no goal is wonderful.
His mantra, for his girls and his wife, who were out there in the cold rain too: "People are watching." Show your kids you can do hard things - and that you don't have to stop playing.
And his last word: have fun with it. Take the workout seriously, but don't take it too seriously.
Jim Toledo - https://www.instagram.com/jamestoledo78/
Zone 2 Endurance - Starting Block Endurance Preworkout - https://www.zone2endurance.com
Races Mentioned
Ironman Florida
Ironman Wisconsin
Ironman Coeur d'Alene
Ironman 70.3 Dallas-Little Elm
Ironman 70.3 Rockford
Marine Corps Marathon
Shout Outs
Kristen Rather
Rob
Nick Barre
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