- What is your hometown?
Ithaca, NY - What brought you to DPT?
I kept seeing ads for DPT on every social media site I use. I knew I needed to get back to going to the gym regularly and I missed the group training class I used to go to, so I decided to give it a try. - How long have you been training with us?
Since May of last year, so almost a year and a half. - What do you do in the “real world?” (job, family, pets, etc)
I’m a cytotechnologist. I work in the pathology lab at CMC, I screen Pap smears and look at cell samples from other parts of the body – with Paps I’m trying to prevent cancer, with other specimens I’m trying to figure out if the patient has cancer or not. I have one cat, Madeline. She is the boss of me. My parents and two brothers live pretty far away so I don’t get to see them as often as I’d like, but we keep in touch and I recently got to spend a week with them at my brother’s place in California. - What is one fun fact that most people don’t know about you? A few years ago General Mills held a Chex party mix recipe contest and my recipe, “Chex PB and Chocolate Blast,” was chosen as one of the 5 finalists. I had to compete against 4 other people for the grand prize. I lost to the Cajun Kick mix, but they ended up putting my recipe on the back of the Rice Chex box, so there’s that.
- What is your favorite exercise and why? I like kettlebell swings where you have to switch from one hand to the other mid-swing. It’s just fun to toss it from one hand to the other.
- What is your biggest gym achievement so far? Running. Before I started at DPT I hadn’t run anywhere for any reason since college. So just making it down the hall and back in the first class was kind of amazing. Now I can manage the parking lot, I can do 200 meters without having to walk part of it, and I’m almost up to 400 meters.
- What inspires and motivates you? Seeing people succeed at something difficult or that they didn’t think they could do is very inspiring. That moment of joy when they accomplish whatever they were trying for is pretty awesome. The thing that motivates me, in general, is my job – I like doing something that’s bigger than me and can actually help someone.
- What would you say to someone who is thinking about joining or who has just joined DPT? You can do more than you think you can. Just try it and find out.