Well as impressive as that transformation was – and it was indeed impressive – I’d like to introduce you to someone with a better story: former big guy and current Atlanta-based Cat. 1 road racing bad-ass Tyler Grahovec.

Grahovec’s early athletic career centered around hockey. The native Midwesterner played defense throughout high school and was slated to log more ice time in college before a stint in the military got in the way. In the early 1990s, a then-240-pound Grahovec served as a mechanic in the Army’s 101^st Airborne at Kentucky’s Fort Campbell. His job was maintaining Chinook helicopters, many of which saw action in the Middle East during Operation Dessert Shield. Grahovec never saw any live fire himself, and was honorably discharged the day the peace treaty was signed.

With service to country done, Grahovec transitioned back into civilian life, relocating to Atlanta in the summer of 1999. With no hockey to play, and no other athletic outlet filling that void, he packed on 20 extra pounds, ballooning to a hefty 260.

“When I moved to Georgia I didn’t know a lot of people, so I just ate a lot and went out,” Grahovec recalled. “Pretty soon my weight got out of control.”

But an overweight sedentary lifestyle didn’t sit well, and Grahovec soon decided to give mountain biking a try. Overnight he was “addicted” and within six months he’d bought a new Gary Fisher Sugar and was lining up for races.

“I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning, but I was reading the website for this race and it said the course was perfect for full-suspension bikes,” he explained. “I had a full-suspension bike so I signed up.”

Grahovec contested the beginner class that first time around, but after missing the start for his second race he jumped into the Clydesdale category and finished top five. He continued to duke it out with the big guys in the ensuing weeks, and by the end of the summer was fifth in final overall series standings.

The following year brought similar success, and by 2002 Grahovec was competing as a member of a local bike shop team. It was around this time that Grahovec met Dedicated Athlete founder John Gamble. At the time Gamble was trying to break into coaching, and offered to mentor Grahovec and his teammates for free.

“Tyler was just a regular guy when I started with him,” said Gamble. “He weighed about 260 pounds.”

With a coach in his corner, Grahovec initially set his sights on the Clydesdale cross-country national title. But Gamble steered his new protégé down a different trail, convincing him to shed some weight and contest traditional categories.

Grahovec bought into the new plan and it wasn’t long before he was dropping pounds and climbing through the mountain bike racing ranks, upgrading to the sport and then expert class. Along the way he put up some impressive results, including third place in the 2005 Sea Otter Classic’s expert 30-34 cross-country race.

Grahovec was also making waves on the road, grabbing the Cat. 4 Georgia state road race title in 2004, and a sixth-place finish at the national Cat. 3 criterium championships in 2005.

“That was the last year I did both mountain and road,” Grahovec explained. “By the middle of that year I’d moved up to Cat. 3 on the road, and I was a Cat. 2 at the end of the year.”

Today, the 37-year-old Grahovec tips the scales at a svelte 180 and has a Cat. 1 racing license. He’s also among the leaders of a top Atlanta-based amateur cycling team. But the truly impressive part of this story is that Grahovec is a working stiff like you and me, not some wannabe pro who lives in his parents’ basement. He’s married, has a three-month old baby boy, and is a plant manager for Marietta-based Pacesetter Steel Service, which buys steel in bulk, then re-sells it to appliance manufactures.

“We do most of our business with air-conditioning and garage door companies,” explained Grahovec, whose Jared-like weight loss inspired the company’s top brass to start sponsoring the cycling team he races for. “They were so impressed that I lost so much weight and was going to national championships that the owner really got behind the team. They’ve been backing us since 2005.”

Last year, despite a rash of injuries to the team, Grahovec and crew contested more than 50 races all over the southeast. The year before, Pacesetter branched out even farther, lining up at the Tour of Jamaica.

“He’s definitely one of the top locals in the area,” said Dedicated Athlete’s Gamble. “But what separates him is that he’s not some genetic freak. He’s a regular 9-to-5 guy with a family and a real job. Pros just have to wake up and train. What Tyler does is a lot harder.”

Indeed, when Grahovec’s not racing, he juggles family, work and training. His typical routine includes workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

“On Tuesday I do lactate threshold or VO2 max intervals up Kennesaw Mountain, which is a local climb that’s about 1.2 miles and has ramps that are 20 percent,” he explained. “After that I do the Tuesday night crit in Marietta and just drill myself into the ground. Thursday’s program depends on how bad off I am from Tuesday. If I’m doing okay I do more VO2 max and threshold intervals. Otherwise it’s just easy openers.”

To survive this intense regimen, Grahovec and the rest of his teammates are loyal users of Dedicated Athlete’s EP-NO endurance supplement.

“It definitely helps me,” said Grahovec. “This year I’ve actually been taking more because I have so much going on. I also help the company out doing taste tests for new product flavors.”

But Grahovec’s biggest contribution to Dedicated Athlete – and dedicated athletes -- is inspiration.

“When you see the path that guy has traveled, you can’t help but be impressed,” said Gamble. “Somewhere along the way a mental switch went off and the next thing you know this 260-pound guy is 180 and fast as hell. It’s a testament to hard work.”

And I guarantee he could take Subway Jared in sprint.

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