LHRL® #162 – Janice Marie Ferguson

Janice Marie Ferguson, you can call me Janice. I like Janice Marie, that’s what my family calls me, as I’m named after an aunt. I really didn’t like to be called just Janice after she died, because that’s what a lot of my family called her, and it felt weird for people to call me that, but Janice Marie is a lot to say for regular people, and she passed in 2004. So, I’m better about it now, and I’ve all but given up on the whole Janice Marie thing for regular people who don’t know my family.-Born and raised in Biloxi, Mississippi, but lived in Texas, my favorite state, for six years.
-We have goats, cows, chickens, European hogs, just a regular Old MacDonald farm. My husband does most of the work keeping up our animals. We live in the same property with my parents, where I grew up. My kids loved living next to their grandparents. I have the best parents in the world!
-Broke the Mississippi high school state record in the indoor mile when I was in 10th grade in high school. Then, got on a bad path and never ran track again after my sophomore year. 🙁  But, look at me now! Spent my entire 30’s trying to make up for that failure to launch phase of 16-20 years old.

-Baylor University graduate (BA in Journalism) It took me 6 years to graduate from college. I was a non-traditional student, married with two children and commuted an hour to school, after dropping my kids off for school every day!

-42 years old (Unlike most Southern women I know, I don’t care if people know how old I am.)
-I have had a lot of jobs over my last 30 years: lifeguard, amusement park employee/ride operator, golf course attendant, concession stand worker and cotton candy maker, video arcade attendant, cashier and cook in a small country store, like the kind you see in the movies where the locals can still have store tabs and all the men of the community come for breakfast and lunch. I’ve actually worked in two of those. I was a veterinary technician, worked at a riding stable, as a telemarketer, worked at K-Mart, was a sales clerk at a western wear store, worked in a glass repair and installation shop, worked in a cabinet shop finishing cabinets, was a Miss Teen USA beauty pageant director, waitress in several restaurants, Relay for Life PR chairperson, cocktail waitress in a casino, non-profit association membership coordinator and national conference trade show organizer, military wife, worked as a freelance journalist–specializing in feature stories, residential remodeling construction, banquet captain at the Beau Rivage executing the details and event orders for up to 1,000-person sit down plated dinners, conference coordinator/event services at the Beau Rivage, high school cross country coach, basketball booster club president, science teacher, Science Olympiad coach, classroom teacher, President and CEO of the Garage Games (I don’t even know if they are still around?), cross country coach, basketball booster club president, and a gym owner. Being a gym owner is the thing I’ve stuck to the longest. My gym has been open since 2013. I started in my back yard in 2011 with a boot camp, moved to a public park, then a 900 sq foot storage unit by 2013. Now, we have a 6000 square foot full fledged facility, a nutrition coaching business alongside our CrossFit and six amazing coaches. I make seven.
-I wanted to be a horse trainer when I was a kid! Never did do that. But, I’m not dead yet. One of my members is a horse chiropractor, and that sounds very interesting! His web site is called “The Animal Cracker.” LOL!

-Capricorn, according to Cosmopolitan magazine, that means I’m a workaholic. I would agree. Also, I hate Cosmopolitan magazine.

-Lover of Outlaw country, I even workout to it! But, I also have Pantera, Blind Melon, and Party in the USA on the same playlist. I actually met Willie Nelson before and took a tour of his bus when I worked at the Beau Rivage. We did all of the show talent’s food and beverage riders. That was pretty cool! Meeting Willie is one of the highlights of my life! I have a Willie for President bandana and some guitar picks with marijuana leaves on them that his band gave to me. LOL!
-Owner, Bandit CrossFit, established in 2013, as mentioned above, started in my backyard with Fergie’s boot camp in 2011. Started doing CrossFit in 2005 (or 2006) at our place way out in the sticks in Texas. (Our town was a population of 136 people). There was only 3 or 4 CFit gyms in the whole state back then. And I was more than an hour away from the nearest one. So, I had to FFIO. I’ve been FFIO’ing it ever since.

-Mother of two girls, both D1 college athletes (one a runner and one a basketball player). They get it from both their mom and their dad and my parents, too. I learned all I needed to know about being mentally tough and not realizing my gender could be a barrier to doing “man” stuff.
-Married to my husband, Richard, for almost 22 years. The first time I saw him was at a bullriding pen. He was riding, and I was riding a bull, too, just to prove that I could. We were only together for a month before I got pregnant. Then, we got married a month after that.
-I just resigned my job as a high school cross country coach for this school year. Feels kind of weird not to be at meets and coaching. But, it is nice to focus on me and going to my kids sports things just as a mom and not having to organize every thing! I was very active with all my kids teams, from strength and conditioning to booster club president and assistant track coach, I was always there to help.
-Since I’ve been fit, I like to do hard or odd things that “normal” people don’t like to do:
2003 World Champion Wild Hog Catcher (my husband and I actually have a belt buckle trophy each for this!) We did this before I was fit. But, I’ve always been tough. And this is just too great of an experience to leave off!
2012 CrossFit Regionals competitor

2013 Top 50 Spartan Racer in the world

2015, 2106 SISU Iron (like the Death Race) DNF both times.

Broken Skull Challenge Competitor, made it to the pit!

American Ninja Warrior Competitor
2015, I qualified for the USAW masters nationals
2018 BFC 50K finisher
GORUCK 12 hour (Tough/Challenge) we did a custom with my gym with 45 people! It was a fun!
I’ve done a lot of different things from Duathlons to 50Ks and a lot of trail races and OCRs. I used to race on a sponsored OCR team. That was a lot of fun!
People wonder all the time about all this stuff I do, but it didn’t start with 100 mile races. I started in Texas with a small-town Czech heritage festival 5k. And, it just took off from there. The fitter I became, the harder the challenge I wanted. The world is basically my oyster, like Shakespeare, and stuff.
-Speaking of Shakespeare, I was in a movie with Dolph Lundgren, Shark Lake, and hung out with him for a little bit! I saved his life with my cell phone. His character would have died had my character not been on a jog, LOL!
-I just showed my first dog in an American Pit Bull Terrier confirmation show. I didn’t win anything, but my husband won the best female in the whole show for the second year in a row with two different dogs! I’m really proud of him!

Things in my future:

-Going back to the BFC this year (it’s this weekend) I will never want to do the Barkley Marathon, though. That is just not interesting enough to me for now. But, that could change after I do this:

-Learning Orienteering, taking a class next month in Alabama (preparing for the SISU Iron) and will do some competitions with my friend Sam.-Leadville 100 run in 2020, I was actually supposed to do it this year, but I deferred it. It was just too much with my youngest daughter moving to college. They have an apartment, so we won’t ever have to move them in again. So, I deferred it for next year. I already booked my AirBNB for both the marathon in June and for the 100 in August. I actually did the half marathon this past June.

-Get more fine-tuned in handling my AR-15, so after the BFC, I’ll be signing up for some courses to be professionally trained. I have considered some tactical shooting competitions for my future, those look very fun, but I have something else I want to do first:

-Endurance horse racing. My ultimate goal is to run the Western States 100 on foot and then also race it on horseback on the same course in the Tevis Cup. So, I’m in the market for a horse right now. I grew up on horses and actually competed in barrels from 18-20 years old.  There’s a horse race near my house next month, and if I can’t secure a horse in time, I will show up and volunteer.

-I have a friend of our family who does Cowboy mounted shooting. That sounds kind of interesting, too. But, I have to get this Tevis cup thing out of the way first. It could take me the next five years to do those two goals. Then, after that, I’d like to start applying for the Mongolian Derby, a 600km horse race across Mongolia on semi-wild Mongolian horses. They only take 40 people, so I have to start working on making an impressive resume!