Athletic Lab is one of the premier performance centers in the country. We take pride in our incredibly diverse community. Our members range from fitness enthusiasts looking to get in the best shape of their lives to elite professional athletes. The common denominator across all our members is that they are hard-working and goal-oriented.

Each month we highlight one or more of our members in our member of the month feature. For the month of January we’ve selected Tristan York. Tristan is a long time member of the Athletic Lab / Cary CrossFit Comp Team. He recently completed the grueling runDisney Dopey Challenge.

You can read about previous members of the month here.

Name: Tristan York

What city were you born in? Portland, Oregon

What do you do when you’re not training at Athletic Lab (occupation, hobbies, etc)? I provide technical (escalation) support for a number of Cisco security products. I enjoy PC gaming, when time permits, and spending time with my family. We love taking trips to the mountains and Disney World. I also enjoy obstacle course racing. To date, I have completed 40 Spartan races.

What’s your favorite exercise? Least favorite? My favorite exercise (at least in a WOD) is burpees…lots of them. That is one movement I can grind through without stopping. My least favorite is still nordic hamstring curls.

What do you feel has been your greatest accomplishment since you started training? There have been quite a few over the years but I would say the most recent achievement that I am proud of is completing the runDisney Dopey Challenge. For those that are not familiar, Disney hosts four races (Disney Marathon Weekend) in early January of each year – 5k, 10k, half marathon, and full marathon. The Dopey Challenge means you complete all four races (Thur – Sun) for a total of 48.6 miles. It was a lot of early mornings (each race started at 5am), and long days in the parks afterwards. Truly a test of physical and mental endurance. I was particularly proud of this achievement since it was my first (and perhaps last) full marathon.

What motivates you in your training? I try to keep a handful of events on my calendar each year but what keeps me coming back day after day is the people, for sure. When the gyms were closed I managed to continue training at home but I really missed the camaraderie and shared suffering.