Mark Bottenhorn

Fitness has been at the center of my life for longer than I can remember. I always excelled in an array of sports growing up. In my junior season of college soccer I realized that I wanted to make my passion for fitness my life's mission. I am a very passionate person and wouldn't thrive in a career that didn't emphasize those passions.

Motivation for me is intrinsic, I don't often look toward outside factors to motivate me. I'm guided by my 'why' which is a beacon in my journey. When I was twenty years old, I struggled tremendously with depression and anxiety. When situations got hard, I took the easy way out, I would quit. I was driven by fear and it made me feel weak. Now my 'why' consists of finding the strongest version of myself and getting 1% better everyday as well as using my fitness platform to help erase the stigma around mental illness. My mission everyday is to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable.

You are stronger than you give yourself credit for. You are closer than you think to breaking through, stay the course and double-down on the things that you love. Continue to invest mightily in your passions and yourself and you will be able to make the impact that you dream of. It will be hard. There will be road bumps and readjustments but the journey will be so rewarding in the end. You will overcome anxiety, depression and achieve the things that you only dream of now.

I am hell bent on living up to my potential and being the strongest version of myself. I try to make sure that all of my relevant choices and habits bring me closer to my goals rather than further away. If my habits or actions do not contribute to my growth or get me closer to my goal, I eliminate them.

Western States 100M endurance run. Qualifying for the United States team in the 24 hour world championship. Compete in Hyrox and Spartan Ultra. Dive more into functional fitness/crossfit.

I believe that my journey in fitness has taught me that progress isn't linear. Small setbacks don't subtract from the bigger picture, in fact they contribute to it. I've learned through competing that I always have more to give, more room for improvement, one more rep left, one more set. You can always dig deeper and do more than you think that you are capable of and that translates to anything in life.

Fitness allows me an avenue to be really competitive while also leading by example for the endurance athletes that I coach. I love the process of training, growing and working hard as well as the way that training makes me feel. I love the idea of improving everyday and erasing my doubts.

I always dread mile repeats. They are long enough to be a grind, but they are short enough to still really hurt. I really love long-steady state tempo runs because it's fun for me to settle in, find a groove and grind out a really uncomfortable effort. I also really enjoy metcon workouts because they are extremely efficient and equally challenging.