Mt. Airy teen number one in Jr. Olympics

Posted 8/19/16

Last summer, after losing 60 pounds and getting in great shape, the Mt. Airy teenager came in first overall in race walking at the Amateur Athletic Union Jr. Olympics, followed by a third-place win …

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Mt. Airy teen number one in Jr. Olympics

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Last summer, after losing 60 pounds and getting in great shape, the Mt. Airy teenager came in first overall in race walking at the Amateur Athletic Union Jr. Olympics, followed by a third-place win in the USATF Jr. Olympics, making him an All American. Last summer, after losing 60 pounds and getting in great shape, the Mt. Airy teenager came in first overall in race walking at the Amateur Athletic Union Jr. Olympics, followed by a third-place win in the USATF Jr. Olympics, making him an All American.

by Carole Verona

Andrew “AJ” Lofton Jr. had to lose before he could win.

After shedding 60 lbs., AJ, 18, won first prize and captured the Hershey Youth National Title for 17-18 year old boys in race-walking, a USA Track and Field (USATF) event, on June 28 of this year. He accomplished it by race-walking 3000 meters, a little less than two miles, in 16 minutes and 58 seconds, his personal best time.

Last summer, the Mt. Airy teenager also came in first overall in race walking at the Amateur Athletic Union Jr. Olympics, followed by a third-place win in the USATF Jr. Olympics, making him an All American.

The road to winning wasn’t easy for AJ. “While growing up, I always had trouble with my weight,” he said. He managed to control it by staying active, playing basketball and running at the St. Luke Spirit Track Club, an outreach ministry of St. Luke Episcopal Church in Germantown. His father, Andrew Lofton, is the coach.

“I stopped running when I was about 12, and things just got a lot worse. My mother, Michelle Townes Lofton, was diagnosed with diabetes when I was going into my sophomore year of high school. She was eating a lot healthier, and I told her, ‘That’s awesome.’ I knew I wanted to lose weight, but I didn’t want to put in the work for it. She told me that nobody can tell you to do something. You have to want to do it for yourself.

“I decided that I wanted to get healthy for me. I wanted to be able to go back to track, to run again, to be able to do all the athletic things that I was doing before. I said to myself, ‘I’m going to get healthy, I’m going to start working again.’”

AJ started watching his food intake. "I ate a lot of fish, some chicken and other lean meats. That summer, I ate a lot of pistachios for protein and drank a lot of water. I didn’t have any junk food. It was definitely hard at first, especially when I was invited to cookouts. But if I knew I was going to a cookout, I would eat before I went. That way, I wasn’t tempted,” he said.

“By the mid-point of the summer, I felt that if I could get there. The first half was definitely hard as far as cutting out, but after a while you realize you don’t necessarily have the cravings you had for sugary stuff because your body becomes accustomed to eating healthy, and you feel better.” AJ supplemented his healthy eating program with six visits a week to the gym.

When AJ was 14, he weighed 205 pounds, the heaviest weight of his life. But during the summer of 2013, between his freshman and sophomore years, he lost about 60 pounds. “I had a lot of support from my mother, my father and my friends on the track team. They were pushing me the whole way. That made it much easier.”

AJ, who now weighs about 143, explained that race-walking, a track and field event, requires an athlete to do two things: “Make sure that one foot is on the ground at all times, and make sure your front leg when stepping forward is straight. It can’t bend. It’s a technical race, which requires concentration, form, speed and stamina.

“To be honest, at first I didn’t recognize that. About two years ago I was watching race-walkers while I was at one of the meets. My friends and I were laughing at the way they were walking. So my coach, who is also my father, said, ‘Oh, so you want to make fun of them!’ He decided to put me in the race-walk at the next meet. At first — I’m not going to lie — it was embarrassing having to race-walk. Then I realized that it is something I actually enjoyed doing. That was cool.”

His training regimen consists of doing specific race-walking drills at least two times a week, including walking only on your heels, and running with his team at the Germantown Friends School track. “I also make sure I get the mileage in; if not, then I might get winded and tired after that first mile.”

When AJ went back to school 60 lbs. lighter to begin his sophomore year, his classmates didn’t recognize him. “They were astonished. That felt good because it made me feel I had accomplished something,” he said.

These were the same kids who called AJ every name in the book during freshman year. “I heard it all. That was demoralizing. But it was also a motivating factor going into my sophomore year,” he said.

To other kids who may be going through the same thing, AJ offers this advice: “There are others who will try to put you down, but think positively. Use that negative energy they are giving you and make something positive out of it. Don’t let it get you down and defeat you because at the end of the day, you are in control of your actions. If you want to take control of your life and make it better for yourself, you have the power to do that.”

In addition to athletic activities, AJ has been involved with police sensitivity training, in which police come to talk to young teens to find solutions to bring the gap between officers and teens and people in the community. AJ graduated in June from Constitution High School. In September, he will attend North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he will study mechanical engineering.

He has two siblings, Thomas, 13, and Lauren, 15, who is the 2016 Miss Black Teen Pennsylvania U.S. Ambassador. (Lauren was the subject of a feature article in the Local on March 31 of this year.)

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