Athlete of the Month: Jon Foley

“Things I didn’t foresee back in March – I would be watching the CrossFit Games and Suzie would be asking me about being Athlete of the Month. So, as I sit here neglecting work and watching the Games (side note – who doesn’t want to drag Rescue Randy around the parking lot?) I’m doing this write-up.

Not going too far back, through some poor motivation and life choices in my 20s I became a bit of a lazy, large human. About 10 years ago my wife (then girlfriend) told me I had to start going to the gym with her. Long story short – got hooked, lost 75lbs and progressed from there. In that time I had a met with a few trainers, didn’t agree with their assessments and continually just rolled my own training. I would make progress, get bored and add something else in. This led me to adding in kettlebells, sandbags, other assorted awkward implements and other functional movement type training peppered in with compound strength training. Then I got bored and started running. Then I got bored and started doing obstacle races – sense a pattern? Kept having to find a new carrot to chase.

That last carrot led me to breaking my ankle at the Killington Beast in September 2016. Went WAY overboard with my recovery to make it back for the next race season. Went back and finished Killington in 2017, but then changes in responsibility at work threw a monkey wrench into my training schedule. My lunch training sessions were few and far between, then winter crept in, I became demotivated and couldn’t get back on track.

In March my wife noticed I wasn’t in the best of places and encouraged me to check out CrossFit (I flirted before, but always found an excuse). Without the ability to find an excuse, I found CrossFit 128, perfect distance from home and work. Dropped in for my first class and was hooked. Went home excited about training again, walked in the next day, signed the contract (and jumped into class) and started hitting 5AMs the day after.

So – I found another carrot, but this carrot seems to stay out of reach as I’m able to constantly challenge myself to reach for heavier weights, faster times and new skills (which all contributes to the ultimate goal of staying bigger, faster and stronger than my son for as long as possible). The 5AM class has a lot of great motivators that help make sure I’m not leaving anything behind. All the coaches have been great, whether it’s telling me I’m doing something wrong or inefficiently, how I can correct it and do it better or just providing the motivation to push through. It had been a while since I woke up everyday ready to take on new challenges, but now that most of the thinking has been taken out of training, I feel better, more confident and more motivated these days. Thanks for the push!”

1) Deadlift + Hang Power Clean + Front Squat + Push Press + Thruster

5 Sets, increasing weight

2) “Launch Pad”

5 Min AMRAP

10 Overhead squats 75/55

5 Pull-ups

2 Min rest

5 Min AMRAP

10 Push press 75/55

5 Toes to bar