Burpees for Danny

Monday night found me face down on the floor of CrossFit South Arlington (CFSA) midway through 9 minutes of non-stop burpees. Ooooooh, burpees…in the world of a crossfitter, it doesn’t get much worse than burpees.

In the world of a pretty cool 9-year-old boy it does. Try brain cancer. Suddenly complaining about burpees seems fairly insignificant when stacked up against a few rounds of chemo, brain scans, and hours of therapy.

A short time ago an all-around good guy and athlete at CFSA, Mike Kelly, asked if an evening class would be willing to wear wrist bands during the WoD (workout of the day) to support his 9-year-old cousin, Danny, who has brain cancer and then pose for a group picture to send as encouragement. No doubt, the picture was a success.

My wrist band from the CFSA Burpees for Danny Event

The enthusiasm around Mike’s cousin and his story grew, reaching a new level of crossfit-enthusiasm when CFSA’s owner, Siddharth Sawkar, offered a donation from CFSA of $0.09 for every burpee completed during a 9 minute AMRAP (As Many Reps As Possible) for Mike's 9-year-old cousin during all six Monday classes. Like I said, crossfitters realllllly don’t like burpees – but people came out in droves for the event. And it wasn’t just the athletes from CFSA that showed up. Crossfitters from area gyms and non-crossfitters alike came to show their support.  Several athletes participated in multiple classes, many matched CFSA’s donations for their own burpees.

In total, 11,293 burpees were accounted for at the end of the evening Monday – with counts still rolling in from athletes on vacation in the Bahamas and participating from around the country. Donations are still accruing to help Danny’s family cover the expenses of therapy and intervention, much of which is not covered by insurance.

I don’t know that I can appropriately capture what it really is that appeals to me about crossfit in one simple blog post, so expect to see more attempts at this in the future. What I do know is that Monday night gave me a glimpse of it in action. A group of people connected almost exclusively through a series of area crossfit gyms came together to support a cause that mattered to a member in the community – and that was enough to make it matter to everyone else.  The same level of support was apparent last Saturday at Crossfit DC during a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society...it was an event of personal importance to one person, and a community came together around her because of it.

No doubt, it doesn't take a crossfit gym to hold a fundraiser for a great cause and for a great kid.  But there's something special in the team that forms from a community of athletes pushing beyond physical exhaustion with the hopes of making things even just a little bit better for someone facing a lot more than 9 minutes of burpees.