Windy City Pulse

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Athlete of the Month: May 2016

Lori Eich

Member since: 11.19.2008
Nickname: Lori!  But some of my frisbee jerseys say Awesometown.
Website: tenhundredpercent.blogspot.com

Windy City: This one is long over-due. We're excited to finally feature long-time member Lori -- Ms. Awesome-town -- Eich. A member for almost eight years, Lori has been with Windy City from the very early days. Nothing seems to faze Lori. She's consistently positive; consistenly fun to be around; and consistently awesome. Congratulations Lori...and thank you for being YOU!

"Be excellent to each other." -Abraham Lincoln

Lori: I love to look back on my workout blog from my first few months with the gym -- I was so. Freaking. Stoked. About everything. “That was so hard! It was awesome!” “I learned a new ninja skill! It’s so awesome!” These feelings haven’t changed. Windy City is where barbell magic happens.

I’ve been a competitive ultimate frisbee player for the past 16 years, and the second half of that has been fueled by Windy City. During the first half of my frisbee career, I thought I was athletic...I thought I was training for my sport...I thought I was working hard enough...but in retrospect I really had no idea how far below my athletic potential had been performing. Fast forward to 2008 -- My teammate Meagles emailed us about this AMAZING GYM that we should all join for offseason training, and I immediately signed up after my first trial class. As I got stronger and leaner, I found that I was faster, I could last longer on the field, and my explosiveness had noticeably increased. My chronic knee and ankle issues were no longer a problem because I was finally strong enough to support the ridiculous things that ultimate frisbee demands of me.

While getting jacked is great, even more important to me is the camaraderie I feel with our community. I love having swolemates. I love high fives. I love having a safe place to talk about macros without feeling like I’m being judged for being too awesome. I love the PR bell. I love doing pullups with Justin Bieber playing in the background. I love that when I was headed abroad for major frisbee competitions, I had buddies in the gym keeping me motivated and then celebrating the wins with me when I got home. I love that I’m surrounded by masters athletes who are CRUSHING IT and setting the bar high for effort, consistency, and results. Windy City is where I can always find people winning at life.

Recent Adventures

The past couple years of my frisbee career have taken me to some pretty amazing places. Stronger Fitter Lori gets even more opportunities to play with great teams -- in the past 4 years, I’ve won world championships in Japan and Dubai with Team USA, competed in Mexico as well as all over the United States with my club team, Mischief, and also played in more casual tournaments in Italy and Hawaii, all with and against some of the best players in the world.

Outside of frisbee, winning Trodo this March with Charles, Mosio, and Anne was pretty rad. Trodo competitions are maybe my favorite way to spend a cold wintery Chicago Saturday. I’m also getting really into climbing now, and every time I successfully complete a new route, I feel pretty freaking awesome.

Future Adventures

The USA Beach National Championships of ultimate frisbee are May 14-15 in Virginia Beach, and my team has a title to defend! After that, I am hoping for some summer adventures, because I’m mostly retiring from frisbee, and I’m really bad at sitting still. I’d love to take a boundary waters canoe / camping trip, or bike across a few countries in Europe, or go climbing at Joshua Tree, or maybe a multi-day river rafting adventure. That all said, my dream vacation would be an entire summer of wakeboarding on my hometown lake.

Personal Goals

At the gym:  Be the Best Lori Ever, as often as possible. Get my muscle-up back, again, but keep it this time. Deadlift 3 plates. Clean more weight than I power clean. Befriend the new kids and convince them that the PR bell is the greatest thing ever.

Professionally: Totally crush the new job I just started, and then leverage that crush-fest to save the world.

Personal: Play trumpet in a real gig. Teach my dog to be less of a jerk to other dogs. Trick Carmen into coming to my band concert. Continue to not sit still -- get out and experience everything.

Choose to celebrate life -- awesome things are always happening everywhere, and the world deserves a high five.

Comments

  1. Michelle Markelz

    Michelle Markelz posted at 2:50pm on May. 2, 2016

    Yeah, Lori!!! Congrats, girl! So, so, so well-deserved!

  2. Gwen Chamberlin

    GwenC posted at 3:26pm on May. 2, 2016

    AWESOME! 

  3. Brenda Brown

    Brenda Brown posted at 3:47pm on May. 2, 2016

    HELL YEAH !  About time - LORI!!! WOO

  4. Ninja posted at 8:11pm on May. 2, 2016

    Congrats, Lori! This acknowledgement is sooo well deserved! You have been such a rock at WCSC. It’s exciting to see how much you’ve grown and improved as an athlete, which is saying a lot b/c you were already a pretty intense athlete when you first showed up. I love your photo array- so great to see you get air on the water and your frisbee life!

  5. Michael Mancini

    Dingo posted at 2:42pm on May. 12, 2016

    Congrats Lori.

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