I was blown away when I got the message that the coaches chose me for January's Athlete of the Month! While I like to joke around at times I still give my best effort, and it's nice to know it's been noticed.

Unsure what to write I read through the AOTM archives for ideas, and what stood out many times was each athlete's personal journey to get them to first walk through the door, then drive them to where they are today. With that as my inspiration here's my story ...

Frustrated with my fitness in June 2017 I told Karen & Leah the 2x/week unstructured workouts at the local box gym wasn't enough and I was ready to make a lifestyle change. I wanted to try this CrossFit thing I'd heard about, and a week later all of us are in an intro class at a CrossFit gym 10 minutes from our house, and as they say, "the rest is history."

But not quite ... fast forward to spring of last year. After hundreds of classes and dozens of competitions all three of us had individually plateaued with our training. Following several family discussions we decided a change was necessary, and after looking around we agreed to go with TNT, and today over a year later I can genuinely say we made the correct decision.

What stands out to me is that while all three of us are at different places in our healthy lifestyle journies, TNT meets each of our needs individually. Since joining I actively attend all of the class types offered (CrossFit, weightlifting, Swift). However, while each serves its purpose, with competing I still have holes in my game that group classes aren't able to provide the time for me to adequately master them. As I'm not able to teach these skills to myself, a few months ago I began weekly 30-minute personal training sessions with Oscar focused specifically on these gaps, and already I've seen huge improvements, which was evident at the Masters competition I participated in last month.

While my original motivation was to get back to the fitness level I had in high school and college, today six and a half years later as a Masters-aged athlete my current drive comes from first watching my dad's cognitive health slowly deteriorate in a full-time memory care facility (he passed in December 2020), then this summer witnessing my uncle's health deteriorate in the same way. These were two guys who grew up in athletic families playing college football who both graduated with acedemic honors. Knowing that maintaining a healthy active lifestyle dramatically reduces a person's chances of cognitive impairment as they age is what keeps me walking through the TNT doors each time.

A huge THANK YOU to everyone at TNT for immediately welcoming in Karen, Leah, and myself a year and a half ago and not treating us as outsiders. I can honestly say in that short time our "friends" list has grown considerably, and for that I'm truly grateful.