Serious Dad Bod

Nobody told you the dad bod was a finish line. But somewhere along the way, it started feeling like one.

I'm not here to tell you how to live. I question my own choices constantly — the training load, the diet, the obsessive tracking of numbers most people have never heard of. I don't have a manifesto. What I have is a refusal to just accept that this is all there is.

My name is John. I'm an anesthesiologist in the Seattle area, married to Kristin, and we have a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Olivia who has no interest in my training data.

Kristin and I have two kids — a daughter who's 21 and a son who's 20. Neither of them were uniquely athletic growing up, standard youth sports, nothing that pointed toward endurance racing. Then my daughter ran a half marathon with me. Now my son says he wants to do an Ironman together.

I don't think that happened by accident.

In 2003 I was a resident hovering around 230 pounds. The NYC Marathon ran past my apartment and something shifted. I'd never run a 5K. I went back in 2004 and ran the marathon anyway. A few years later I signed up for an Ironman because I was turning 40 and it seemed like something to do. I didn't really know how to swim. That's a repeating theme with me — sign up first, figure it out later.

I finished that Ironman in 2008. Trained hard through 2012. Then life took over in the way life does. I became president of my medical group, then CEO, still working full time as a physician. We moved to Washington in 2014. The training became something, then not much, then something small again. In 2022 I went back and finished Ironman Canada.

Now I'm 25 weeks out from Ironman 70.3 Washington Tri-Cities. I have a DEXA scan baseline, a CTL target, and a Cervelo P5 dialed to an aero position I can actually hold for 56 miles on the bike. I track everything. I question everything. I'm built by time, not shortcuts.

The brand started as a joke. When COVID hit and the ORs went quiet, I figured I'd start an online presence. I wasn't in shape. Dad bod was accurate. Serious Dad Bod felt both true and a little defiant — because I was serious about not staying there.

That's still what this is. Not a transformation story with a clean ending. Not a fitness influencer telling you what to eat. Just someone who decided the default wasn't good enough, doing the work in public, and being honest about how hard and uncertain and worthwhile it actually is.

If that's interesting to you, stick around.