Market: Boston

Athlete: Sarah Downey,  Accomplice

There was a time when I was totally incapable of doing a single pull-up. Even though I'd done eight years of track and field and five of field hockey, being an athlete didn't mean I could pull myself up over a bar. I was always a fast runner, but we never worked on pull-ups in practice and I justified my inability with the usual excuses: women are more bottom-heavy; we're not built to do pull-ups; it’s just not something I can do.

When I moved on to law school after college, I wasn't sure what to do with myself athletically. There were no more varsity sports. It didn't feel like working out hard had a purpose anymore. I did a few half marathons and one full marathon to give myself a challenge, but running had always come naturally. After finishing the marathon, I was bored with running and decided to try P90X, an at-home lifting program with a lot of focus on bodyweight exercises, especially pull-ups.

The P90X approach was "don't say 'I can't;' say 'I presently struggle with.'" The strategy was to always try to do as many reps of something as possible, unmodified, even if mentally you don’t believe you’re capable. Using that approach over many months I surprised myself by doing one pull-up. A real one.

I kept at it for almost ten years, from around 2008 until today. The challenge about pull-ups is that to do them, you have to do them. It sounds paradoxical, but volume is the biggest contributor to ability. If you can't do them, do negatives. If you can't do a lot in a set, do one or two every time you walk under a bar. Consistency is key.

When it came time to challenge myself with training for The D10 I was working out twice a week at InnerCity Weightlifting (ICW). ICW is a nonprofit gym that provides a safe, supportive place to weight train. ICW reduces youth violence and creates hope for an alternative path that doesn’t end in death or jail-time. My trainer Eric has overcome more in his young life than most people ever could imagine. If he could do that, I could do another five reps on bench. While I trained for The D10 I also thought about the fundraising I was doing for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the people in my life, like my aunt Calista and my grandfather, who lost the battle to cancer.

When I stepped onto The D10’s playing field in Boston, I busted out 14 pull-ups to win that event for the women. It always feels good to win something, but knowing how hard I pushed myself and for how many years made the success all that much more rewarding. I also won the 500-meter row (1:45), the dips (30 reps), and the bench press (36 reps at 75 pounds). These aren't events that I had ever been good at in my past, like I said - I was built for running and that's what I did. But through grueling effort both physically and mentally I was able to master them and make a difference while I did it.