I’ve played sports for as long as I can remember. Little League baseball, Pee Wee football, High School wrestling, football and golf, then rowed crew and played football in college. Since then it’s been running, cycling, swimming and a lifetime globo gym membership. Fitness has always been a priority for me and I did anything I could to stay in shape. I found CrossFit after driving by CrossFit by Overload one day looking for something else on that street, and now I’m in the best shape of my life!

I read an article about CrossFit and coach Glassman in a magazine several years ago and it interested me so much that I went out and bought one dumbbell and a med ball and tried one of the WODs. It about killed me! Some months later, a bit out of shape and recovering from recent knee surgery, I drove by a store front with a big CrossFit banner on it. I stopped in, met Jordan Gravatt, the owner of CFO, and found out all I needed to know about CrossFit….and I had to be a part of it! By the time I left CFO that day, my wife and I were both scheduled to start our 1 on 1 fundamentals classes the following Monday. That was November of 2008 and we haven’t looked back since! CFO has changed our lives forever!! We are now both Level 1 certified trainers and have various other certs including gymnastics, oly lifting, mobility and CrossFit Kids. I love the intensity and challenge that CrossFit provides and there’s nothing like sharing the floor of your box making sweat angels with fellow CrossFitters who are truly the only ones that really “get” why we put ourselves through these incredible workouts and keep coming back tomorrow! My only wish is that I could have found CrossFit sooner.

I’m 54 years old. That doesn’t make me unique, just the oldest guy in my box. I very much enjoy the challenge of working out next to younger athletes and trying to compete at their level. I’ve always believed that anything can be accomplished when you are properly motivated. That necessary motivation can come from external sources or circumstances, but truly lasting success is a result of self-motivation. All I ever wanted to do when I was growing up was fly. I scrubbed golf clubs and pumped gas to earn the money for flying lessons and got my pilot’s license in high school. I was motivated. I wanted to fly fighter jets so I studied hard and earned an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and was off to Navy flight school after graduation. Now I was really motivated. A year later, I was a new Naval Aviator and off to Miramar to fly F-14 Tomcats. Now some 30 years later and looking back, it’s even more clear to me that motivation was the key to any success that I may have had and it continues to be the key for me in CrossFit. Although I don’t fight in airplanes anymore, the fight against the WOD clock is every bit as competitive, intense and rewarding. I want to continue to improve athletically and fight off the effects of time for the rest of my life and I want to help others do the same. That is my motivation now. I want to be doing Fran Rx when I’m 75 years old and beyond! CrossFit, like nothing else, is the mechanism that will enable me or anybody else on this planet to do that because it is truly the much sought after and mythical “Fountain of Youth!”

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