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CrossFit Level 1
I moved upstate in 2012 after almost two decades in New York City. During that time, I wrote two books about theater and worked for more than a dozen magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, where I still write as a freelancer. What I didn’t do there – or during my first 10 years in Rochester – was exercise. It wasn’t until my 50th birthday that I finally decided to listen to my doctor and do something about my overall health. I dove into the deep end and went straight from the couch to CrossFit.
The last four years have been equal parts humbling and exhilarating, with personal milestones alternating with regular mutterings of “Fine, but I’ll never be able to do that.” And along the way, several of those “thats” turned into some of those milestones. When I’m not sweating in the basement of the JCC (at Brickyard, of course), I teach journalism at Syracuse University.
My wife, Beth, gets to the gym more often than I do and does more impressive stuff than I can. The two of us partner on workouts when we can, our son is about to become a DIII athlete at Skidmore College, and our preteen daughter now spends considerable time on the pull-up bar in our garage. They are the reason I work hard and enjoy life as much as I do.
As a teenager, I was a competitive triathlete, and since I was a good swimmer and great at teaching, I became a swim teacher. Then, in high school, I started working out at the gym to improve my strength to benefit my triathlete skills. I ended up loving gym workouts more than triathlons. Four years later, I got my certification as a trainer and started working as one just for fun. I never thought about making my hobby my job, but the more I tried to have a 'real' job, the more I was drawn to being a professional trainer and coach. A few years later, CrossFit came up on TV. It looked impressive, so I googled it and decided to give it a try. After following and performing CrossFit workouts, I decided to become certified as a trainer
So much of CrossFit depends on a willingness to try hard things and make an endless series of small corrections as you go. The Brickyard community – easily the nicest and most supportive group of fellow athletes you will ever meet – makes this process weirdly fun and incredibly satisfying. Early on, Beth asked me after a particularly brutal workout, “When does this get easy?” Four years later, I know the answer. It doesn’t. But I can promise that if you put in the effort, your definition of what is hard – and what your body is capable of doing – will change again and again at Brickyard. For the better.
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