Episode 1: CrossFit Pittsburgh Origin Story

Transcript

WEBVTT

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Hello and welcome to the CrossFit Pittsburgh origin story.

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Thought the best place to start would be the beginning.

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The beginning.

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So with me today is my beautiful daughter, alexandra, and she was actually quite probably one of our member number one.

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Member number one at the age of five, cinco, and that's actually a pretty funny part of the origin story.

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But, kind of like our timeline, and, believe me, this is going to be broken up into segments because we've got some fun guests throughout our beginnings, right, and of course, my wife, jennifer.

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She will be a big part of this, is and was a big part of the origin, but she's not here today due to family commitments, and so we thought we'd launch.

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First time I ever ever heard of CrossFit was July of 2004.

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My first deployment to Baghdad and I was complaining about my workouts.

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I had turned 40 the year prior in Tel Aviv, israel, and I had been doing the same training for forever, forever body parts right Back in biceps one day, chest and triceps the next, and you know that kind of thing.

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And I was in the dining facility on the Presidential Palace compound in Baghdad, downtown Baghdad, and I was complaining to one of my teammates about my workouts and, real matter of fact, he just said whatever you ever ever heard of CrossFit I had not.

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So he's like, hey, check it out.

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Crossfitcom and their original website is a very, very basic website.

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So it was great because it had everything you needed, nothing that you didn't.

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So I go and I look at it and the workout of the day for that day.

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It just said deadlifts One dash, one dash, one dash, one dash for 10.

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I didn't even know what that meant.

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All right, so in the comments, sure enough, somebody's like hey, I'm new here, what does that mean?

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Somebody else posts oh, that means you do deadlifts, 10 sets of one rep, great.

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So I gave it a try and you know, with an open mind, I was like I've never trained like this before and I don't.

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And back then it was just that to the point, it was like 10 sets of one.

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Here you go.

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So I gave it my best effort.

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I really I even went onto YouTube to make sure I understood what a deadlift was.

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Well, now, crossfit references, reference materials.

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They're everywhere.

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They're on the main website.

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It'll break down day to day Like this is how you do this, this is how you do that.

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Back then they didn't have that.

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So I did a good warmup and I progressed through 10 single deadlifts and it's.

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You know, it's a strength bias workout, that one.

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It's like the next day I, you know, I didn't feel like I was breathing heavy doing the workout, but the next day I felt like I had just been hammered.

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Every muscle in my my rear delts, my rear delts were sore, the muscles in my feet were sore, everything I mean.

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And it was a really, really challenging workout and I became that guy right there.

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That was like how do you know?

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Somebody does CrossFit.

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That's all they ever talk about.

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And then the teammate of mine with the whole personality.

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Exactly, Exactly.

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But fortunately for me, the teammate of mine who told me about it was kind of the same way.

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So hey, did you do this?

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You know, but I think one of my favorites was when I started talking to mom and I was telling her you know we're back and forth whether over the phone or or.

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You know we didn't have the.

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We had good cellular connectivity back then because of who I worked for, but streaming wasn't the way it is now.

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You know you didn't have the technology I think we had.

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We tried like Yahoo Messenger a couple of times and you could like either we could either hear each other or see each other.

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Yeah, but never both.

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The video would freeze if you could hear good, and if you couldn't hear well, if the audio wasn't working, you could see each other.

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Like I see you guys jumping around in the background and all that.

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But what I started to do is just to email.

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I would send mom workouts like a week in advance, but I would go backwards and I'd get like last week's workout and I'd translate everything, I'd scale it for her and I'd put in descriptions and all that and I'd send it to her and then I started buying equipment and sending it to the house and she would work out between the home gym and then step out onto the patio for the wall balls and all that kind of stuff.

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And I swear I think it was my first trip home.

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We had all this stuff that she had not unpacked yet, like a 15 foot climbing rope.

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Do you remember the first rope we had?

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No.

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I don't think so.

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We hung it up on a tree in the backyard.

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And the house right now.

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Yeah, oh yeah, I remember that one.

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And that was one of my favorite stories was after I went back, I think back to Iraq.

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I'm talking to mom one day and she was like yeah, so get this.

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She was like I'm mowing the lawn and I'm back and forth in her little straight rows across the backyard and she said I swear I heard Alexandra go mom and she looks around, but she doesn't turn off the mower.

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She looks around.

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She sees Michael in his little you know, because he was just a baby right and Emily's running around and you know, michael's in his little little seat and she's like we started with her imagination.

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So she goes and does another couple of passes, mom, now she realizes that it is you and she's like what in the world shuts off?

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The lawn mower looks up.

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You're up at the top of the rope Like you.

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You climbed up to the top and you just like, locked off with your feet and you're like mom, mom, not calling for help, not calling because you don't know how to get down.

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You just stayed up there until you got her attention so you could wave at her.

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And I was like that is really really cool.

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I don't think I knew that story.

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Oh yeah, true story, because that was like at five years old.

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Yeah.

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Right.

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So then, two years later, I was in Afghanistan and I want to say November, I want to say November of 2007,.

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We were asked to host a level one certificate course and we're like, yeah, absolutely, because back then they didn't do them like they do now.

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You know, now it's every weekend all over the world.

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It's, it's much more.

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I mean, it was organized back then.

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I don't take anything away from that but now involved, now probably.

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Yes, much more evolved and global.

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You know, it's absolutely global.

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And now you have the training cadre that there are so many of them and all very well trained, and they'll just, you know, they'll go out and hit numbers where back when we did it, it was Greg Glassman and the headquarters crew.

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So you know, we hosted coach Nicole Carroll, dave Castro, tony Budding was media at the time, savon, whoever he came, and then the what they call the ass whooping chronicles.

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What?

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What ass CrossFit or ass whipping.

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I think, it's ass whipping chronicles?

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I'm not sure, but yeah, we do some recon do do, do a little bit of, do a little bit of.

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We call it due diligence.

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Due diligence, right, I think it is the ass whooping.

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Look at CrossFit Pittsburgh ass whooping chronicles, because what they remember, the premise that he used to do is oh my God, was it funny.

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He would come in and he would go head to head with a coach and they would like, would make a chipper workout, would like make the workout up on the spot, and then they would and I swear I think Somewhere in our video.

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Ass-whipping Pittsburgh, part one 12 years ago.

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Yeah, there you go.

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That is our gym there, our old Jeep, yeah, yeah, you know what else is funny.

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Jackie, if I'm not mistaken, it's the beginning of that video.

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So what is it again?

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Ass-whipping, ass-whipping, part one we had.

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Is it say.

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Is it CrossFit Pittsburgh ass-whipping Chronicles?

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No, it says ass-whipping Pittsburgh part one ass-whipping Pittsburgh part one, because, if I'm not mistaken, that's the one that starts out when they're driving.

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Yeah, they're driving over to Viaduct in their rental vehicle and their film, their videoing, out the window, and and they're playing the theme from the sopranos in the background, oh my god, yeah, you remember how the viaduct used to have that scrappy Art down below it?

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No, yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure.

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And snowflakes are coming in like it was late November.

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Right, the snowflakes are coming in real big.

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It's maybe not late November, but November.

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In Pittsburgh anything's possible, dude, you know weather wise, but At the right.

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I found no, I found me yes yes, at the end, at the end now that part three I think part three part for so.

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So that same level one at our gym was broken down for YouTube.

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It's broken down into three parts and the coolest part, I mean it was a great weekend all the way around.

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But one of the things I remember vividly was my wife, my mother-in-law, had our kids for the weekend and At the end of the weekend, like we're just, you know, wrapping things up, everybody saying their goodbyes and all that.

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But the way they did it back then, with no training cadre, they would reach out to neighboring affiliates and back then there weren't that many of us.

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So for that Certificate course they had CrossFit Boston, neil and his crew from CrossFit Boston, keith, and CrossFit New York City, doug, and Hyperfit from Ann Arbor, michigan.

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They like all came in and I converged on Pittsburgh and Made up the instructors.

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Crossfit Reston from Virginia crew came up from there and it was.

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It was wild because you know, all these things stacked going on at the same time.

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Excuse me, we were mom and I were coaches, trainers for the cert, but we were.

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So, in other words, like we're, we're teaching the attendees so that they get their L1.

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There's another tier of instructors above us who are judging us so that we get our L2?

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Oh, and headquarters is watching them so they get their.

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L3, so they get their.

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L3 all at the same time.

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It was crazy, and that that weekend these will all be standalone episodes of the podcast at some point.

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But I Wouldn't trade it for anything.

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The experience, I would not train it for anything to trade it for anything, but to wrap up, what was wild was the rope climb in the backyard, like in 2005.

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Right, the end of that weekend you rolled in With my mother-in-law was watching the kids I think I mentioned that so Wrapping everything up, everybody saying their goodbyes and the garage door in the front of the box was open.

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So all of a sudden, I see our car pull up because Bobby took mom's car for the weekend, so it had the kids seats in it.

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Right, she's getting Michael out of the car.

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You and Emily just come running across.

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You see me and mom and we're actually talking to coach at the time.

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Right, we're talking with Greg and we're standing right by the climbing ropes and you guys ran right up, gave us big hugs and everything.

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And we're talking and coaches like hey, who's this?

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I was like oh, coach, this is Alexandra and this is Emily and you're both like hi.

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And I don't know what popped into my head.

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But I was like, hey, sweetheart, show coach what you can do with the rope, and I think it's in the video.

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You just like drop your jacket.

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I'm wearing an all-pink outfit which is very on-brand.

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Yeah, that's kind of.

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That's your signature color.

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Yeah, pink sweatsuit, white sneakers and climbed up.

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If you could talk to, Like you've been doing it forever, like a real crossfitter you are, climbs up, boom, touches off the beam and scurries back, and as soon as your feet hit the ground, coach looks at you and he goes sweetheart, don't ever stop doing that.

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That was one of the coolest moments.

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It says future of ass whooping, yeah, yeah, the future of ass whooping, but I mean, it was just, it was great, you know, and that's the kind of, that's the kind of culture that I've always felt CrossFit Creates.

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You know, I one, I think it attracts it.

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It attracts that type of person, whether they're kind of in their shell or not.

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You know, like, like, people gravitate to crock, I guess a lot of different nuances, right, some people just try it for the novelty of oh, I've heard about it, I never tried it.

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Other people are like now I need something different.

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And that's me, that was me, like I, I need something different because what I've been doing no longer, it's no longer productive.

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I mean, I guess, arguably, you could say what's it's working, it's better than nothing, but it wasn't much better than nothing.

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You know, I felt like my workouts back then at 40 years old.

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I'm like this is I'm going through the motions, you know, and.

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But I think you know it attracts a, a diverse group of people, everybody for their own reasons, but you know, for watching you at at that age where you're climbing a rope because it's fun, you're climbing a rope because it's there, right.

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And then I remember over the years, you know you Didn't really do it like religiously or consistently, but you know, I knew I could, yeah, and that was always like.

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It was like a go.

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No, I don't you sure?

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But it was always if we would have a party or we would have people over at our house, people would come over and they'd look at the rope Like dairy chowder, you know, like high school boys, like oh, can you climb the rope, can you climb the rope, whatever?

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And then mom would come out and go Alexandra can climb the rope.

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And she would always show it off to everyone, like it didn't matter who they were if they were talking about it.

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She was like my daughter can do it.

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Yeah she'd like get on up there and I.

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Half the time I was doing it without my shoes, which is a terrible mistake, but the funny part about it was right, straight, the weight ratio, you could do it, yeah, right.

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And shoes only become a factor when you have to if you have to pinch the rope to slow your descent.

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You know which you might wear shoes.

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Yeah, I think you know there's a lot of.

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There's a lot of potential like philosophy here too.

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You know, don't stop doing that, because if you stop doing it, you may never do it again, right, or the ability to do it, and again, too, like the some of the more subtleties I think of of CrossFit, become, and anybody who's done it long enough will tell you you might have even experienced this.

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You know, hey, did you hear that?

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Mm-hmm, those loud.

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You know what it sounded like a Sonar on a submarine for a minute I'm like hope we're not being invaded because I ran that submarines.

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You know what doesn't matter.

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You know why?

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Because we are the United States goddamn Navy.

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That's why that's right.

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Anyway, not sure what that was, but oh well, the show must go on.

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But I think that's it.

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You know, any crossfader will tell you hey, you have muscle-ups, yes or no.

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If you don't, you develop them.

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If you do great, but Sometime or other in a crossfit athlete's career path like you have them.

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Then all of a sudden you're like I.

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Lost them.

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Excuse me, and it was not a fluke.

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It was not a fluke that you got with my accident, but I have seen this happen if you switch your focus, if all of a sudden, like what haven't really been doing?

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Gymnastics, you know, but I put on 20 pounds and I'm stronger, yeah, well, that's 20 pounds you put on at the expense of your gymnastic skills, right?

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So I think that's the essence of it, though crossfit is balance.

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You know, like a real good friend of mine, I Don't like to name last names on the podcast.

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We just call them Danny, but according to Danny, football is life.

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Oh my god right and I agree with him.

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But you know, I look at it and I say Crossfit is life.

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You know, you think that's not funny.

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Danny's a good guy.

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You know I love Danny right Football.

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Football is life yeah anyway, what was the name of the dog that he killed?

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I don't know.

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He had it written on his boots.

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Oh, did he?

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Yeah, like he went to take a penalty kick.

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I forgot about it like the dog's name, like RIP you know whatever anyway, listen, we're not laughing at the death of a have a dog.

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It was an accident, right, but anyway.

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Um, football is life, crossfit is life and it's a better quality of life, and that's a fact.

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And now, so fast forward.

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You no longer that like six, seven year old kid climbing a rope just because it's there.

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You know, now you're an L1 coach at Pittsburgh's first affiliate.

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What are we now?

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18?

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18 years.

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18 years old, so Crossfit Pittsburgh is now eligible to vote.

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We are legal, but not allowed to drink not allowed to drink.

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We can also serve the forces we consume quantities of jocco go why?

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Because when we do we don't yawn like that.

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I've had too much caffeine today pink mist.

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So it's a.

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It's a scandalous blend of pink lemonade, which you know.

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It's funny about pink lemonade?

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I'll tell you Nothing.

00:19:26.201 --> 00:19:30.691
It's nothing funny about it's lemonade, it's lemonade.

00:19:30.691 --> 00:19:36.292
This is a true story and if, if we wanted to fact check it, we could, but I don't care right.

00:19:36.292 --> 00:19:40.535
Allegedly pink lemonade started Did you know this?

00:19:40.535 --> 00:19:41.339
At a carnival.

00:19:41.339 --> 00:19:45.612
Yep, it was like a trapeze artist wearing a red leotard.

00:19:46.780 --> 00:19:49.211
Fell off the bat of a fellow in a vat of lemonade.

00:19:49.411 --> 00:19:53.949
Listen, even if it didn't happen, because to be honest I'm a little skeptical what are the odds?

00:19:53.949 --> 00:19:57.529
What are the odds that that vat of you know?

00:19:57.871 --> 00:19:58.934
there's just big this.

00:19:58.934 --> 00:20:00.519
How big was it right?

00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:02.587
I mean, I don't know, if never you got.

00:20:02.607 --> 00:20:09.509
That's a lot of people that would drink lemonade in a vat that big but supposedly a trapeze artist wearing very tiny trapeze.

00:20:09.590 --> 00:20:10.973
Artist very small.

00:20:11.295 --> 00:20:16.723
Mm-hmm, like Like that up in John song Hold me closer Tony Danza.

00:20:16.763 --> 00:20:20.192
Tony Danza must have been Tony Danza must have been Tony Danza in a red leotard.

00:20:20.192 --> 00:20:20.792
Tony Danza.

00:20:21.201 --> 00:20:25.680
And he fell off the trapeze into the lemonade, hence creating thereby.

00:20:26.060 --> 00:20:27.065
Is that Michael's handwriting?

00:20:29.025 --> 00:20:38.333
I don't know if you can see it on the screen, but where so On the the window here into the next, like the conference area here.

00:20:38.333 --> 00:20:46.592
When the lights off in the other room, I'll use that window as like a like a dry erase board.

00:20:46.592 --> 00:20:51.749
Right now the walls are painted white, the ceilings painted white.

00:20:51.749 --> 00:20:55.615
The last color you should use on that would be white.

00:20:55.615 --> 00:20:58.525
All right, so got a little to-do list.

00:20:58.525 --> 00:21:01.211
That's, you know, just due to necessity.

00:21:01.211 --> 00:21:05.929
White was the only color Glass marker I had up here, so got a couple things there.

00:21:05.949 --> 00:21:07.755
So my son was up here over a.

00:21:07.775 --> 00:21:21.349
Christmas break and he wrote he told me what it means and I'm not even sure work where Worms and it's like where some kind of gaming thing or something.

00:21:21.349 --> 00:21:23.273
You could be the fact checker.

00:21:23.273 --> 00:21:24.817
You could check facts.

00:21:24.817 --> 00:21:28.486
What FAAX facts, facts Do they still have facts machines.

00:21:28.786 --> 00:21:29.146
You know what?

00:21:29.186 --> 00:21:29.607
I'm gonna do.

00:21:29.607 --> 00:21:30.676
I'm doing this.

00:21:30.676 --> 00:21:31.720
It's gonna be a thing.

00:21:31.720 --> 00:21:35.878
I'm gonna bring back the facts and I'm also gonna bring back.

00:21:35.878 --> 00:21:50.696
You probably don't even know what this is, but if you're a guy and you grew up in the 70s huh, comment post to comments A hot comb you know what a hot comb is, dude do you really?

00:21:50.876 --> 00:21:51.778
It's a hot comb.

00:21:55.715 --> 00:22:04.087
So back in the day I didn't ask for it, right, my mom bought it for me as like a stocking stuffer one Christmas.

00:22:04.087 --> 00:22:08.204
I'm like you know how much care I've taken in my hair over the years.

00:22:08.204 --> 00:22:13.169
I shampoo regularly, well, except when it was like long and luscious.

00:22:13.169 --> 00:22:14.075
You know what I'm saying?

00:22:14.075 --> 00:22:23.079
Well, because then I took care of it like I conditioned it, I did all the I had my guy just like cut the With the ends, like to strengthen.

00:22:23.079 --> 00:22:25.384
That is the thing you do, that you do.

00:22:25.384 --> 00:22:26.488
Yeah, but um.

00:22:27.674 --> 00:22:30.325
Yes, anyway uh, hot comb, I'm gonna bring back the.

00:22:30.325 --> 00:22:33.720
I'm not even gonna bring back the facts, because that's just stupid.

00:22:33.720 --> 00:22:36.244
But anyway, man, we got off point.

00:22:36.244 --> 00:22:43.449
Yeah, you did right so, but you're crossfit or you're not, and I think that's a fair assessment.

00:22:43.449 --> 00:22:44.131
You know.

00:22:44.151 --> 00:22:45.115
I think it's a fair assessment.

00:22:45.616 --> 00:22:52.586
But I also believe this there's no reason that everybody can't be.

00:22:52.586 --> 00:22:56.480
Anybody can be.

00:22:56.480 --> 00:23:02.817
It's it's as versatile and adaptable, right?

00:23:02.817 --> 00:23:04.253
I guess that's what I'm getting at, I agree.

00:23:04.494 --> 00:23:07.806
But there does come to a point where you need to be mentally involved.

00:23:07.806 --> 00:23:22.653
You need to be mentally there because you can only Modify so much, and if your coach has given you modification after modification and you're still like, well, that's not gonna work, well, that like, then it might just not be for you and you should find something.

00:23:22.653 --> 00:23:22.994
Yeah, absolutely.

00:23:23.336 --> 00:23:41.005
No, I agree, but I think that's where, like the, the divergence is between like, you just don't want to be here, right, right, so so not for you, meaning you just really don't want to do this, correct, whereas If you want to do it, you can.

00:23:41.046 --> 00:23:44.335
You'll find a way to do it yeah you can and and the coaches at.

00:23:45.940 --> 00:23:50.169
You know I one of the things and I think we've earned the right to say this.

00:23:50.169 --> 00:23:59.853
As an 18 year affiliate, I could not be more proud Of where the community is going, where the community is, where it came from.

00:23:59.853 --> 00:24:00.335
I always loved it.

00:24:00.335 --> 00:24:03.770
I'm always proud to be a part of it, always.

00:24:03.770 --> 00:24:04.434
That never wavered, not once.

00:24:05.221 --> 00:24:26.255
But when I look, you know one of our friends who, who used to be one of the one of the certification staff Awesome Denise, so cool, so cool and she used to come here quite a bit like in a different, you know, rotations.

00:24:26.255 --> 00:24:28.063
Sometimes you see a lot of the same faces when they send the trainers here.

00:24:28.063 --> 00:24:41.616
But I remember she and I had this conversation and I said you know what's wild is looking at the, how infrequently they used to have the L ones, l2 and L3.

00:24:41.616 --> 00:25:04.174
Like the structure in place was a little bit different how to get that, but the L ones were like maybe months in between and if you were lucky there was one, if there was one, if you were lucky it was close enough to you that you could get to it, you know, and to see the evolution of how you know they've trained up a crew.

00:25:04.474 --> 00:25:12.423
And when they send the, the red shirts, like I like to call them, you know when they get here there are no weak links, it's a.

00:25:12.423 --> 00:25:19.006
It's a fantastic program, it's a great team and it's nice to see familiar faces.

00:25:19.006 --> 00:25:21.112
It's great to see old friends cycle through.

00:25:21.112 --> 00:25:33.381
And when you meet, like the next wave, you know, like like the new trainers that are here, you know, like like the new trainers that are coming through the, the caliber is, it is tier one.

00:25:33.381 --> 00:25:42.709
I mean, there's, there's no doubt about it and I'm I'm extremely proud to be a part of that and to kind of be around from the beginning and to see that how it's evolved.

00:25:42.709 --> 00:25:44.622
You know, it's just been great.

00:25:44.622 --> 00:25:48.757
And Sitting here today it is really wild.

00:25:48.798 --> 00:25:59.178
Like my intent was to have episode one of our origin story be with mom, because you know, I don't even want to tell some of the stories without her.

00:25:59.178 --> 00:26:04.544
Hey, you know, we should open an affiliate.

00:26:04.544 --> 00:26:10.522
And she's like, yeah, it's, you know it's, we should talk about that.

00:26:10.522 --> 00:26:15.585
I I think it was that afternoon, at least the building, and I didn't intend.

00:26:15.585 --> 00:26:24.276
I mean, I was driving to visit Listen, smarty, I was going, you guys were little and it was a beautiful sunny afternoon it was.

00:26:24.276 --> 00:26:31.278
I was between deployments and I'm like, hey, I'm just gonna stop at my mom and dad's for a little bit to say, hi, you know, and do you remember?

00:26:31.278 --> 00:26:36.599
You remember the uh yellow Corvette, a little 68 convertible?

00:26:36.599 --> 00:26:37.182
I remember?

00:26:37.182 --> 00:26:38.726
Yeah, I bought and didn't tell mom.

00:26:39.674 --> 00:26:40.759
You seem to do that a lot.

00:26:41.734 --> 00:26:42.900
Because sometimes she says no.

00:26:42.900 --> 00:26:47.924
So listen and don't tolerate this from a spouse.

00:26:47.924 --> 00:26:53.464
I'll tell you this right now, and you potentially know who I'm talking about.

00:26:53.464 --> 00:26:54.999
That's where to.

00:26:56.974 --> 00:27:03.416
Anyway, don't tolerate this right, but I remember, yeah, but anyway.

00:27:03.416 --> 00:27:12.182
So I'm like it's a beautiful day, I'm gonna go visit mom and dad, throw the top down and I I saw an old, old automotive garage.

00:27:12.182 --> 00:27:14.712
Um, at least at that day.

00:27:14.712 --> 00:27:20.290
But anyway, that's for the episode that Mom is here to, because I want to get her reaction.

00:27:20.290 --> 00:27:26.259
I hope I don't wake up a sleeping bear.

00:27:26.259 --> 00:27:31.125
You know, she's like actually son of a sailor.

00:27:31.125 --> 00:27:35.900
She could unleash Hades on me.

00:27:35.900 --> 00:27:36.401
She has.

00:27:36.401 --> 00:27:52.809
You know what I'll do tell my viewers out there when I address this with my beautiful wife and she is beautiful when I address it with her if it's going bad because she'll be sitting in the co-host seat If I start to do this.

00:27:53.692 --> 00:27:59.048
No, that's, that's I do that, if I do like a, like a no, because you can't see if I'm drinking.

00:27:59.048 --> 00:28:00.252
You know what I'll do.

00:28:00.252 --> 00:28:01.436
You know what I'll do.

00:28:01.436 --> 00:28:16.932
I'll do a POW tap code If I start doing this rhythmic, if it sounds like the theme from the Partridge family, you know what, in a panic I probably won't remember the theme from the Partridge family I'll be doing like Mr Hades' father or something.

00:28:16.932 --> 00:28:17.634
You don't even know.

00:28:17.634 --> 00:28:18.277
Any of these shows.

00:28:18.277 --> 00:28:19.259
You aren't even a twinkle.

00:28:19.259 --> 00:28:22.012
You are, you weren't, I wasn't anyway.

00:28:22.012 --> 00:28:24.116
So that was a good story.

00:28:24.116 --> 00:28:44.604
But I think what's really wild is watching that, that episode and the caption on the last one, part Three, the future of ass whooping, and it's you at like six, something like that, seven, yeah, and here it is, you know.

00:28:44.644 --> 00:28:48.559
So Compared to my videos of me climbing there up now at 23.

00:28:49.049 --> 00:28:56.776
Yeah, right, but I mean, that's the thing like that, you, you coach, put it out there, right, the future of ass whooping and boom.

00:28:56.776 --> 00:29:04.602
And now you're an L one and you're coaching here for us and you know like we're taking this thing to the next, to the next level, which is awesome.

00:29:04.602 --> 00:29:08.037
But you go go back to that first L one course.

00:29:08.037 --> 00:29:10.582
This is funny and I don't know if you knew.

00:29:10.582 --> 00:29:17.472
You know, when I was deployed and you guys were little the wild part about it was because of who I worked for.

00:29:17.472 --> 00:29:19.962
We didn't, it was, it was government, it wasn't military.

00:29:19.962 --> 00:29:27.002
So, like all of my teammates, we could live wherever we wanted and we just had to deploy when it was our time, right.

00:29:27.002 --> 00:29:38.789
So really, if we lived in a military town, I think you all, even at that young age, would have been a lot more aware of what was happening and all you guys knew in the beginning was oh.

00:29:38.930 --> 00:29:39.972
Daddy works far away.

00:29:39.972 --> 00:29:41.234
That was it.

00:29:41.234 --> 00:29:42.577
You know, which was great.

00:29:42.577 --> 00:29:56.013
That was the way your mom and I wanted it, and be kind of selective how I put this together, but it was November, it was November of 2004.

00:29:56.013 --> 00:30:08.679
So you were, you were a little, I mean, you were four years old, right, emily was two, michael wasn't even born yet, and 2004,.

00:30:08.878 --> 00:30:47.815
We're in Iraq, right, I mean maybe weeks before my first trip home, and we had some colleagues at a different agency Not sure what that is, but when that happens, right, I'm like God, no, anyway and some colleagues from another agency, all right, and we crossed paths with them a lot and they were really really good dudes and their team leader, tom, was.

00:30:47.815 --> 00:30:49.939
His first name, tj, he went by TJ.

00:30:49.939 --> 00:30:52.223
So we crossed paths quite a bit.

00:30:52.223 --> 00:30:56.425
Now, bear in mind that, depending on where you, everybody flies in at that time.

00:30:56.425 --> 00:31:02.506
For the most part everybody would fly into Baghdad and then they would kind of disperse from there.

00:31:02.506 --> 00:31:12.609
Balog was another major hub and but really a lot of the activity was around Baghdad, in and around.

00:31:12.609 --> 00:31:18.109
So you'd fly into there usually and then get a Hilo out to you know different, different outposts.

00:31:18.109 --> 00:31:30.027
So saw him frequently and then you know, we knew they were still in country, but you know, they were kind of like out of the area, so great, so fast forward.

00:31:30.027 --> 00:31:31.992
I think probably some hadn't seen them since summer.

00:31:32.694 --> 00:31:34.681
So November 2004,.

00:31:34.681 --> 00:31:39.073
We've got a run to take and we're taking a kid, one of our kids.

00:31:39.073 --> 00:31:49.257
Like the youngsters, the techs, we're taking them back, but because of all the gear that he had to take with him, we had to take him over the road.

00:31:49.257 --> 00:31:56.542
So we're like, all right, you know the op tempo at the time, you know we deemed it to be safe and all that.

00:31:56.542 --> 00:32:01.396
So we brief our mission, we load him up and we're like All right, here we go.

00:32:01.396 --> 00:32:05.347
I wish you could see this.

00:32:05.347 --> 00:32:15.434
I'm not sure what just happened, but a little animated cartoon bubble just popped up on the screen with a thumbs up in it and I'm like it's there again.

00:32:15.434 --> 00:32:15.836
You know what?

00:32:15.836 --> 00:32:22.218
Wonder if it's mimicking, because I did that that might be what kind of what kind?

00:32:22.238 --> 00:32:23.602
of witchcraft is going on here.

00:32:23.602 --> 00:32:25.491
It's crazy.

00:32:25.551 --> 00:32:26.034
I'm not doing.

00:32:26.034 --> 00:32:26.275
I'm not.

00:32:26.275 --> 00:32:27.681
I'm putting my hands right here.

00:32:28.684 --> 00:32:32.801
Right, I make some other kind of sign and like, who knows what pops up.

00:32:32.801 --> 00:32:45.338
It's craziness your mom would like, right, that's what I'm saying, right, anyway, so long story short, we brief our mission, we take our run out, we drop our kid off and it's a real good guy.

00:32:45.338 --> 00:32:50.895
And as as we unload him and his gear, he's like hey guys, could we get a team picture?

00:32:50.895 --> 00:32:54.554
I'd really like a picture with you, like, yeah, sure, why not?

00:32:54.554 --> 00:32:54.994
Right?

00:32:54.994 --> 00:33:05.074
So we pose for this team picture with him right in the middle and you know we're, we're lined up around them and you know we get somebody in the in the area that'll take a picture of us.

00:33:05.074 --> 00:33:05.355
Great.

00:33:06.378 --> 00:33:07.722
So we get back in our vehicles.

00:33:07.722 --> 00:33:20.279
And this is not it's for those of you who may be familiar with Iraq back at that time is route Irish was a highway between downtown Baghdad and the airport and it was literally a straight shot.

00:33:20.279 --> 00:33:21.402
I used to know the miles.

00:33:21.402 --> 00:33:22.230
I don't anymore.

00:33:22.230 --> 00:33:26.330
But it's not a long drive, it's not like here, you know, getting to the airport from here it's like.

00:33:26.330 --> 00:33:30.299
It's not even like getting from here to the, from home to the mall.

00:33:30.299 --> 00:33:31.990
I mean, it's short, right?

00:33:31.990 --> 00:33:38.625
So, as we roll in to the annex to pick our guy up.

00:33:38.625 --> 00:33:47.192
You know, we fuel the vehicles, we brief, we roll into the annex to pick up our kid and who do I see at curbside but TJ and his guys.

00:33:47.192 --> 00:33:52.372
So we get out of the truck to load our boy and I'm like, hey brother, I'm like it's been a minute.

00:33:52.372 --> 00:33:53.193
We know how are you.

00:33:53.374 --> 00:33:55.298
He's like hey, man, good to see you.

00:33:55.298 --> 00:33:59.255
It gives me a bro hug and he goes you're still here.

00:33:59.255 --> 00:34:01.118
He's like you haven't been blown up yet.

00:34:01.118 --> 00:34:05.532
Dark humor, right and as serious as can be.

00:34:05.532 --> 00:34:07.817
I look at him and I go not yet.

00:34:07.817 --> 00:34:09.101
But you know what?

00:34:09.782 --> 00:34:10.463
might be today.

00:34:12.110 --> 00:34:25.012
So we drop our guy, we get back in our vehicles and we're rolling back into the green zone and we get hit by this little bastard in a white Toyota Corolla loaded with explosives, suicide bomber.

00:34:25.012 --> 00:34:40.407
Right there's three lanes of traffic coming inbound, three lanes coming out and I'm in the lead vehicle, in the passenger seat, so I'm giving a running commentary to our follow vehicle which is supposed to be safely behind us and we're not moving slow.

00:34:40.407 --> 00:34:50.932
But the running commentary I'm like all right, the on ramp, that the ramp is clear, clear to the right, nothing in front of us, steady traffic, outbound, heavy traffic.

00:34:50.932 --> 00:34:53.777
All three lanes coming out, nothing going in.

00:34:53.777 --> 00:34:58.538
We're up on this overpass and, sure as hell.

00:34:58.739 --> 00:35:01.487
The army used to move the Jersey Barrier's.

00:35:01.487 --> 00:35:03.474
You know those big concrete dividers.

00:35:03.474 --> 00:35:10.568
You see, sometimes during road construction the army sometimes would move them so that they can get their Humvees around without taking the exits.

00:35:10.568 --> 00:35:13.682
One had been moved, hadn't been put back.

00:35:13.682 --> 00:35:23.141
So this nut job is in the far left lane, his far right, our far left, steady traffic, outbound.

00:35:23.141 --> 00:35:25.726
Talk about timing and divine intervention.

00:35:25.726 --> 00:35:36.375
He shoots across the other lanes of traffic, comes right through the gap in the Jersey Barriers, hits our vehicle on the move and sets himself off.

00:35:36.414 --> 00:35:39.001
All right, I got a great picture of the truck somewhere.

00:35:39.001 --> 00:35:41.947
It's like it's destroyed.

00:35:41.947 --> 00:35:43.639
We're okay.

00:35:43.639 --> 00:36:00.472

Episode 1: CrossFit Pittsburgh Origin Story - Part 1

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