From Commodore 64 to Central Park at midnight
I was never the athletic kid. Never played sports, barely survived gym class. I was introverted, left of center, most comfortable alone in my room. My father saw that and handed me a Commodore 64 instead of the Nintendo I wanted. I went deeper into systems, into figuring out how things worked. My mother went the opposite direction — she owned a gym, and she'd pull me out of my room to work the floor with her, her way of staying connected to me.
She wanted me to take over the business. I didn't get it. I built an IT company instead. Years later she closed the gym, retired, and passed away from cancer not long after.
That loss broke something open in me. I started training to channel the grief. Lost 39 pounds that summer, got into the best shape of my life. The harder I trained, the closer I felt to her. I soon signed up for an Ironman, to raise money for Women's Cancer Research in her name.
One night, midnight, deep into a run through Central Park after a 54-mile bike ride, I felt her. Every lesson she ever taught me redownloaded, all at once. I asked myself what I was still doing in IT when I clearly wasn't in love with it anymore.
I went back to school for Exercise Science and later Nutritional Science. I found her original gym logo, modernized it, and relaunched her brand under a new name: Brooklyn BodyFit.
Every client I train, every protocol I build, every pattern I trace back to its root, comes from her. This is her spirit, still running in the background.
