Day one of training at Crossfit NYC began this week for the four Metro Challenge winners: Alexandra Mitchner, Esther Carpenter, Robert Hawthorn and Sean Smith were all hand-selected by Metro to train like a Marine for the next month with Josh Newman, co-owner and trainer at CrossFit NYC.
The four will even get the chance to participate in the Civilian Military Combine, a grueling 7-mile mountain race with military drills to be held Sept. 10 in the Pocono Mountains.
The Metro Challenge winners will train three times a week at CrossFit on West 26th Street, starting at 8 a.m. sharp every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That’s followed by working out on their own in between, plus runs every Tuesday and Thursday — and another run on weekends, just for good measure.
At CrossFit, they learn “Elements,” the fundamentals of how to safely perfect core exercises and do short intervals of high-intensity workouts. These techniques are also a crucial part of the military drills they’ll soon be doing in the combine.
After 20-second intervals of push-ups and squats, everyone’s arms felt like jelly and walking down the stairs without quivering legs wasn’t easy.
But Metro Challenge winners said what they thought would be a grueling hour of torture turned out to actually be pretty fun.
“The workouts are intense,” said Hawthorn. “In what normally takes an hour to achieve at a conventional gym, takes half the time with Josh.”
Follow along in print as they prepare for the race, five weeks away.
