100 in 100: Day 47- Shreeja Pillai

Shreeja Pillai has spent much of her life adapting to new rooms. A finance professional with a CPA earned in India, she moved with her husband from India to Japan to New Jersey — landing in the U.S. in 2009 with a ten-month-old daughter and no support system — before the family put down roots in Westborough in 2012. She raised two kids, built a career, and turned a new town into what she calls a home away from home, with friends she now counts as family. What she hadn't done, by the time she reached her forties, was walk into a gym like Prototype.

For years, fitness had been something she squeezed in around everything else. She joined a big-box gym back in 2014, then returned to work in 2016 and watched her routine unravel between the job, preschool pickups, and home. Walks replaced workouts. Yoga replaced the walks. Then COVID pushed everything remote, and her body started asking for more than yoga could give. Her friend Karuna had mentioned a place called Prototype more than once — Shreeja admits she didn't pay much attention at first. But she kept noticing how much Karuna was changing. Eventually she made the call and booked a free visit.

She met Coach Jon for a tour, and the first thing she noticed was what wasn't there: an open floor with almost no machines. She had never done CrossFit in her life, and she genuinely wondered what people even did in a space like that. Then came her first group class, and the doubt arrived with it. But she survived it. And then she did it again. Before long she was telling her boss and coworkers that she'd joined CrossFit — a sentence that surprised her as much as it surprised them. Her boss traded Orange Theory for CrossFit in his own town not long after. Now they have something to talk about besides work.

What kept her coming back was the people — and a few moments she never saw coming. There was the 5:30 warmup when Coach Brian asked for five box jumps, and Shreeja, who had planned to quietly step up onto the box, decided to just try to jump. She cleared a 20-inch box for the first time and lit up like a kid who'd just had a shining moment on stage, with Karuna cheering beside her. When she waved Brian over to show him, he wasn't surprised at all: "You can do it, and I don't know why you had doubts."

The Numbers Keep Climbing

The proof is in the logbook. Across two years and more than 300 classes, Shreeja's numbers have climbed steadily: her deadlift went from 115 pounds to 190, her bench press from 85 to a 115-pound one-rep max, her front squat from 100 to 145, and her barbell hip thrust from 115 all the way to 225. The day Karolina lent her a lifting belt, she pulled the heaviest deadlift of her life. And the running — the thing she was most sure she couldn't do — turned around too. She used to struggle to cover 100 meters; now she runs 400 without stopping. She credits the Longevity sessions, and one workout in particular, when Coach Jon caught her walking mid-metcon and simply fell in beside her: "It's all mental — don't let your mind control you. I'm going to jog, and you're going to jog with me." She still hears it every time a workout gets hard.

These days she can't picture her life without it. Her job in Waltham and the travel that comes with it make it hard to get in every day, but if she misses more than three, she starts feeling like she's missing all the fun — a sentence she can't quite believe she says out loud now. Her people are in the noon, 4 p.m., and 5:30 crews: Betty texting to make sure she's ready for a partner workout, Deven telling her she'd better show up, Peg stepping in at a 7 a.m. class and telling her, "You're here, and this spot is yours." And then there's Manav. Shreeja brought her son into Prototype, and this year the two of them went head-to-head in the Prototype Open, comparing scores and breaking down the workouts like teammates. The first morning she drove him in, she dropped off a boy who was annoyed to be there. She picked up a boy who was smiling.

Shreeja walked into Prototype to try something new. What she found was a community she calls family and a version of herself who keeps setting records she never planned to chase. She came a long way to get here — and she's still surprising herself every single time she hits a PR.

"I am here to compete only with my own self and to be a little better than I was yesterday — and to discover how far I can go."

If you've ever looked at a place like this and thought that's not for me, I'd never survive — Shreeja thought the exact same thing before her first class. One free session is all it takes to find out what you're actually capable of.

Watching Shreeja train is a reminder of what consistency actually looks like. She walked in unsure she belonged, and she's quietly become one of the steadiest, strongest members in the room — the kind of person who makes everyone around her better just by showing up.

What makes her story even more special to me is Manav. Shreeja and her son both train at Prototype, and watching a parent and their kid compete in the same Open, chase PRs, and talk through workouts under the same roof is exactly what we're building here. Not a place where families drop off and wait in the car — a place where they train side by side, in the same arena. That's the future of this community, and the Pillai family is living proof of it.

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