Pat LaCroix

For the longest time, Pat LaCroix was exactly the person a place like Prototype isn't supposed to be able to reach. He'd been training consistently for two decades. He had a routine he liked. And when his coworker Todd Kinsman kept telling him, year after year, that he should come check out Prototype — that it was “like gym class,” in the best possible way — Pat had a ready answer every single time. He didn't need it. He didn't want to spend the time. He didn't want to spend the money. He was, by his own cheerful admission, probably the biggest skeptic of a place like this you could find.

What the skepticism was quietly covering was a hard five years. Pat had stepped away from what was once his dream job. He'd lost his father after a long battle with health issues. He'd watched his oldest son fight — admirably, inspirationally — through a string of sports injuries and surgeries. And like a lot of people, he'd shifted to working from home full-time and lost the steady hum of connection that used to come built into a workday. By the end of 2025 his career had found its footing again, but his fitness was missing something he couldn't quite name: energy, camaraderie, a reason to start the day right.

The tipping point came, of all places, over Chinese food. Every year Pat's family shares a Christmas Eve Eve dinner with the Lees and another family — this year at the Mandarin. Betty Lee spent part of the night talking about how much she loved her mornings at Prototype. Pat, sitting there feeling heavier and more lethargic than he had in years, finally heard it. A few days later he walked through the door for the first time — long before he'd meet gym friends like Alvin Wong there — and got hooked immediately.

Pat is not a man short on community. He's coached youth baseball, soccer, and basketball around Westborough for years, and he's run the town's travel basketball program as president for more than five. He walked in assuming he already knew what connection felt like. What surprised him was how much deeper it got. Half the room turned out to be people he already knew — coworkers, neighbors, fellow parents, families he'd coached — and somehow Prototype tightened all of it while introducing him to a whole new set of people from Westborough and the towns around it.

Off the gym floor: Pat, president of Westborough Youth Basketball, doing what he's done in this town for years.

The 6 AM Crew

Most of Pat's training happens with the 6:00 AM crew, and if you've never met a 6 AM crew, the description is always the same: a little ribbing from the loudest voices in the room that turns, without warning, into some of the most genuine support and counsel you'll get all day. Since his first class on January 3, Pat has logged 130 sign-ins — 59 of them at that 6 AM hour — plus a 20-pound jump in his back squat and a HYROX simulation along the way. But ask him about the workout he remembers most, and he won't name a benchmark. He'll tell you about the morning he got partnered with Anne Leahy for a run, discovered they had almost nothing in common on paper, and spent the whole thing having one of the loveliest conversations about family he'd had in ages.

After the 2026 HYROX Simulation at Prototype — the kind of challenge a “decent routine” never put in front of him.

Then there was this morning. After class, while everyone was wiping down equipment and trading the usual chatter, Pat jumped up to the bar and knocked out his first-ever unassisted pull-up. He told Cori Wigington. Cori, naturally, announced it to the entire room — which meant Pat had to do a second one, on the spot, with everyone watching.

Six months in, the skeptic is gone. Pat has his rhythm back — the daily rituals and habits he'd lost somewhere after 2020 — and a physical checklist that now includes a pull-up he wasn't sure he'd ever get. But the part he keeps coming back to isn't physical at all. A while back he watched Abhi Das's story, the one where Abhi compares Prototype to church, and something clicked. For Pat, that's exactly what it's become. He came in looking for a better morning routine. What he found was a room full of people — new friends and old ones like Chris Blanchard, Tim Martell, and Greg Cusato — who make him laugh before 8 a.m., and a place he now calls his own.

“There is truly no better feeling than knowing you're going to start your day with a guaranteed smile, a laugh, and a fist bump every single time you walk through the door.”

If you've already got a routine you like and quietly figure a place like this isn't for you — that you don't need it, don't have the time, don't want to spend the money — you're in good company. Pat made that exact case for years. Then he walked in one January morning and never looked back. You're allowed to walk in skeptical. Just walk in.

I knew Pat long before he ever set foot in Prototype. Todd Kinsman introduced us years ago, and Pat once came out to a leadership day I hosted at Next Jump's Boston office as my guest. So he was never a stranger to me — just a great guy who wasn't yet a member. It took a holiday gift card this past winter to finally get him through our door, and I'm glad it did.

Pat is the person every gym owner hopes to reach and rarely does — already fit, already busy, already sure he's fine. What I love about his story is that he didn't need us to get in shape. He needed us for the thing you can't put on a whiteboard: the people. Watching him become a fixture of the 6 AM crew, knock out his first pull-up, and call this place his church has been a joy. Pat's been an amazing addition to our community, and we've gotten to be his place for the past 7+ months. I'm glad he took the plunge.

This story was developed from written responses submitted by the member and shaped with the help of AI writing tools. The facts, quotes, and experiences are Pat's own — AI helped organize and present them in a format worthy of the story he's lived.