100 in 100: Shana Doiron- Day 26

When Shana Doiron moved to Westborough, she had a problem most people don't say out loud: she was lonely.

She'd come from a few towns over, she worked from home full-time, and with all three kids at school during the day, the house was quiet. She's a social person by nature — and the gym she'd joined when she got to town wasn't helping. Everyone there kept to themselves: in, out, headphones on. She wanted to find her people.

The idea clicked at a wedding. The bride's friends were all in great shape and obviously close, and when Shana asked how they knew each other, the answer was simple — they did CrossFit together. I need to find that near home, she thought. About a week later she ran into Coach Jon at a Westborough community event and decided to give it a try.

What she was hoping for was modest: “to stay in shape and meet a few new friends.” What she got was a good deal more. And the thing she'd been afraid of turned out to be nothing at all.

The coaches have a phrase they repeat until it sinks in: it's your workout. They'll push you toward your best, Shana found, but never past what you can actually handle. She signed in for her first class in November 2019. She hasn't really stopped since.

The 1,000 club she built herself

Most fitness stories hinge on a single before-and-after moment. Shana's doesn't. Hers is the opposite — it's what happens when someone simply keeps showing up, week after week, for years.

And Shana has always had a thing for milestones. She's joked about them for ages — at one point she made her own "750 Club," put a sign up at the front of the gym, and stuck her own picture on it. Then she set her sights on the big one.

Last Friday, June 5th, she got it: her 1,000th class at Prototype. The friends from her 9 a.m. class showed up with balloons to celebrate, and she took home a Prototype Committed Yeti to mark the day. She's now at 1,002 and counting.

That's not a number you fake. It's 184 classes in 2025. It's another hundred-plus already this year. It's six-plus years of showing up — most of them on ordinary days that felt like any other day. She didn't come for the barbell or the leaderboard; she came to find her people. What kept her coming back was that she did — along with a rhythm, a reason to step away from her desk, and a version of herself that got stronger every single year.

She's not a one-method member, either. Across those thousand-plus classes she's trained CrossFit, Prototype Thrive, Longevity, mobility, and nutrition coaching. Her work calendar is a moving target, so she doesn't have one set class time — she fits it in around her meetings, often landing with her beloved 4 p.m. crew.

Her most memorable Prototype moments, she'll tell you, came from the strangest stretch of all: the COVID lockdown. When the world shut down and most people's training fell apart, Shana's did the opposite — she logged 180 classes in 2020, her highest total ever, many of them virtual Thrive and Endure sessions from her living room. Between the workouts there were virtual happy hours. Somehow, the community held. “It showed me,” she says, “that this place was about more than just the workouts.”

The runner she never thought she'd be

Ask Shana what's changed, and she won't lead with a barbell. She'll tell you she's never been a runner — that she'd pick literally any other cardio over running. And yet: she finished a 5K just last week (“slow, but I did it!”), and she's now training for a Disney 10K this October. In her own words, so clearly something has changed. She's quick to credit the workouts and the coaching at Prototype for getting her to a start line she'd never have approached on her own. (Wish her luck.)

The barbell tells the same story. When she started, a 20-rep back squat meant 50 pounds; today she squats 135. Her deadlift climbed from 85 pounds to a 155-pound max, her front squat from 70 to 125, her bench to 110. She earned all of it the slow way — through Prototype Nutrition, through learning what her body actually needed, through years of unglamorous, every-week work. Over this past year especially, the payoff has been impossible to miss.

A family that grew up in the gym

Off the floor, Shana is a CPA who audits state and local governments — a job that keeps her at a desk all day, which is part of why that hour at the gym matters as much as it does. She and Gerry have three kids: Sophie (14), Kelsie (12), and Myles (10).

From the beginning, Prototype wasn't just Shana's. Gerry trained alongside her, and the kids came too — playing on the back mat with their gym buddies while their parents worked out, learning early that this is simply what their family does.

These days it's come full circle: her youngest, Myles, is now in Prototype's Fundamentals program — learning the ropes in the same gym he grew up running around.

Her people

Remember, Shana came here to find her people — and she found them fast. Jean and Debbie were among the first members she met outside the coaches, and the three of them are now, in Shana's words, “besties for life.” (There is one house rule: do not take Debbie's spot. Save it for her. 😄)

Around them is a whole crew — Jean, Debbie, Betty, Sandy, Steph, Shellie, and Marybeth among them — plus the 4 p.m. group she lands with when her meeting schedule allows. As she puts it, they're just as fun outside the gym as they are in it.

It's no surprise that when members voted on the gym's awards, Shana landed among the top names for Most Welcoming. The lonely newcomer became the person who makes everyone else feel at home — the kind of community glue you can't recruit, only grow.

From the back of the room to team captain

This year, the woman who first walked in just hoping to make a few friends was named a team captain for the 2026 Prototype Open, leading Coach Brian's team. The newcomer who didn't know a soul in town is now someone other members line up behind.

Her favorite quote has been the same the whole time: "Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars." A thousand classes later, it's safe to say she landed.