24 Heroes in 24 Hours: How Our Westborough Gym Honored Veterans Day 2026
24 Heroes in 24 Hours: How Our Westborough Gym Honored Veterans Day 2026
24 Heroes in 24 Hours is our annual Veterans Day tradition: one Hero WOD every hour, on the hour, for 24 straight hours. This year it ran from Saturday, November 7 at 7AM to Sunday, November 8 at 7AM. More than 151 Hero WODs were completed by more than 70 members(151 logged in Wodify, plus plenty more that never got logged), every one of the 24 hours had people on the floor, including 3AM, and three Prototype veterans were honored with Quilts of Valor. Each workout is named for someone who gave their life in service, and before every one we read their name.
Happy Veterans Day
Today is Veterans Day. To every veteran in our community and every family that served alongside them: thank you.
Every year around this day we do something that is hard on purpose. For 24 hours we run the workouts named for men and women who didn’t come home. We started this tradition in 2019, and it still means the most when the gym is quiet at 3AM and a couple of people are on the floor anyway, reading a name off the whiteboard before they start.
What is a Hero WOD?
A Hero WOD is a workout named for a service member, first responder or other hero who died in the line of duty. Most were written by the units, friends and families of the people they honor, and they’re hard by design. The idea is simple: for the length of that workout, you carry their name with you. Every one of them can be scaled, and our coaches scale them for every level.
Every hour had a crew
The day opened strong with 19 people for Lumberjack 20 at 7AM, and it closed strong with 15 for Anna at 6AM Sunday. In between, the sign-ins thinned out the way you’d expect, but they never hit zero, and the photos show the real crowd was bigger than the sign-ins. From midnight to 5AM, at least two people were on the floor every single hour.
All 24 crews, hour by hour
After every workout, whoever was on the floor lined up against the wall for a photo. Here are all 24, from the packed 7AM start to the 3AM crew to the 6AM Sunday finish.
Coach Tony, all 24 hours
Coach Tony Pittman is a retired Command Sergeant Major with 20 years in the US Army and six combat deployments. He was the coach on the schedule for 24 Heroes, and he didn’t just run it. Tony, his son and his son’s friends completed all 24 Hero WODs, start to finish, scaled and modified in partner format, from 7AM Saturday straight through to 7AM Sunday.
Six combat deployments, 20 years of service, and he spent his Veterans Day weekend doing all 24 workouts with his son, making sure every one of these names got read out loud.
If you don’t know Tony’s story, read it. He found CrossFit in the field during a deployment, retired in 2019, and found his team again on East Main Street. Read Coach Tony’s 100 in 100 story.
Quilts of Valor
The weekend also gave us a moment we won’t forget. We hosted a Quilts of Valor presentation on the gym floor and honored three Prototype veterans. The Quilts of Valor Foundation is a volunteer group that makes handmade quilts and presents them to service members and veterans touched by war, as a thank-you from the community they served.
The three honored were Bridget Owens, Tony Potenti and Jean Hanks. Each of them has shared their story with us this year:
- Bridget Owens is a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army, a PhD-trained registered dietitian and a research scientist who studies how nutrition shapes the health and performance of soldiers. Read Bridget’s story.
- Tony Potenti joined the Marines at 20 and served four years, finishing in a scout sniper platoon, before becoming a firefighter. Read Tony’s story.
- Jean Hanks enlisted in the Army out of high school and served from 1977 to 1980. Read Jean’s story.
Bridget, Tony and Jean: thank you for your service.
There was music, and there were quilts wrapped around the shoulders of people who have given a lot more than most of us will ever be asked to. It was a good reminder of why we do this weekend at all.
The 24 heroes we honored
Here is every workout, in order, and who it honors. Most are U.S. service members. A few honor allies from Denmark and Canada, and two honor civilians: the Fort Hood victims and Eva Mireles, a teacher and CrossFit athlete killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
| Hour | Hero WOD | Honoring |
|---|---|---|
| Sat 7:00 AM | Lumberjack 20 | The 13 people killed in the Nov. 5, 2009 Fort Hood shooting, including four CrossFit athletes from the Army's 20th Engineer Battalion |
| Sat 8:00 AM | Mr. Joshua | Navy SEAL SO1 Joshua Thomas Harris, 36, who drowned during combat operations in Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2008 |
| Sat 9:00 AM | White | Army 1st Lt. Ashley White, 24, of Alliance, Ohio, killed by an IED in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan on Oct. 22, 2011 |
| Sat 10:00 AM | Eva Strong | Eva Mireles, the Uvalde, Texas teacher and CrossFit athlete killed at Robb Elementary in May 2022 |
| Sat 11:00 AM | Loredo | Army Staff Sgt. Edwardo Loredo, 34, of Houston, 82nd Airborne, killed by an IED in Afghanistan on June 24, 2010 |
| Sat 12:00 PM | Tommy V | Navy SEAL Senior Chief Petty Officer Thomas J. Valentine, 37, of Ham Lake, Minn., killed in a training accident in Arizona on Feb. 13, 2008 |
| Sat 1:00 PM | Jerry | Army Sgt. Maj. Jerry Dwayne Patton, 40, a special operations soldier killed in a high-altitude parachute training accident on Oct. 15, 2008 |
| Sat 2:00 PM | Santiago | Army Sgt. Anibal Santiago, 37, of Belvidere, Ill., 75th Ranger Regiment, who died in Bagram, Afghanistan on July 18, 2010 |
| Sat 3:00 PM | Strange | Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Michael J. Strange, 25, of Philadelphia, killed when his unit's helicopter was shot down in Wardak Province, Afghanistan on Aug. 6, 2011 |
| Sat 4:00 PM | Glen | Former Navy SEAL Glen Doherty, 42, of Winchester, Mass., killed defending the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012 |
| Sat 5:00 PM | FAAS Fit | Navy SEAL John Weston Faas, killed when his unit's helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan on Aug. 6, 2011 |
| Sat 6:00 PM | Whitten | Army Capt. Dan Whitten, 28, of Grimes, Iowa, 82nd Airborne, killed by an IED in Zabul, Afghanistan on Feb. 2, 2010 |
| Sat 7:00 PM | Jason | Navy SEAL SO1 Jason Dale Lewis, killed by an IED during combat operations in southern Baghdad on July 6, 2007 |
| Sat 8:00 PM | Collin | Navy SEAL Chief Collin Trent Thomas, 33, of Morehead, Ky., killed during combat operations in eastern Afghanistan on Aug. 18, 2010 |
| Sat 9:00 PM | René | Danish Army Sgt. René Brink Jakobsen, 39, of the Jaegerkorpset special forces, killed by an IED in Helmand Province, Afghanistan on Jan. 3, 2013 |
| Sat 10:00 PM | Three Wise Men | The Wise brothers: Navy SEAL Jeremy Wise and Army Green Beret Ben Wise, both killed in Afghanistan, and their brother Beau, a Marine |
| Sat 11:00 PM | Ship | Canadian Forces Sgt. Prescott Shipway, 36, of Esterhazy, Saskatchewan, killed by a roadside bomb in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan on Sept. 7, 2008 |
| Sun 12:00 AM | Adam Brown | Navy SEAL Chief Adam Lee Brown, 36, of Hot Springs, Ark., killed in battle in Afghanistan on March 17, 2010 |
| Sun 1:00 AM | DT | Air Force Staff Sgt. Timothy P. Davis, 28, killed when his vehicle was struck by an IED in Afghanistan on Feb. 20, 2009 |
| Sun 2:00 AM | Abbate | Marine Sgt. Matthew T. Abbate, 26, of Honolulu, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, killed in Helmand Province, Afghanistan on Dec. 2, 2010 |
| Sun 3:00 AM | Job's Challenge | Navy SEAL Ryan Job, blinded by enemy fire in Ramadi, Iraq in 2006, who died in 2009 after surgery for his wounds |
| Sun 4:00 AM | Jack | Army Staff Sgt. Jack M. Martin III, 26, of Bethany, Okla., 1st Special Forces Group, killed by an IED on Jolo Island, Philippines on Sept. 29, 2009 |
| Sun 5:00 AM | Danny Dietz | Navy SEAL Danny Dietz, 25, killed in Operation Red Wings in Kunar Province, Afghanistan on June 28, 2005 |
| Sun 6:00 AM | Anna | A partner memorial workout to close out the 24 hours |
Honoree details are from each workout’s CrossFit.com Hero WOD page, checked before the event. We couldn’t confirm the story behind Anna, so we’re leaving it at her name.
A name close to home
One of this year’s heroes was from right down the road. Glen Doherty, a former Navy SEAL from Winchester, Massachusetts, was killed defending the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. He was 42. His workout, Glen, ran at 4PM Saturday: 30 clean and jerks, a mile run, 10 rope climbs, another mile and 100 burpees.
Why we keep doing it
Nobody needs a 24-hour workout. That’s not the point. The point is that for one weekend a year, a room full of people in Westborough stops and learns who these men and women were: where they grew up, how old they were, what unit they served in. Then we do something hard together, in their name.
That’s what a training community is supposed to be. You show up for each other, and you remember the people who showed up for all of us.
You don’t have to wait for next November to train with this crew. See our group classes →
Come train with us
Our group classes are coached, scaled for every level and full of people like the ones in these photos. Book a visit and we’ll show you around.
Frequently asked questions
What is 24 Heroes in 24 Hours?
24 Heroes in 24 Hours is an annual Veterans Day event at Prototype Training Systems in Westborough, MA. We run one Hero WOD every hour, on the hour, for 24 straight hours, and each workout honors a service member or other hero who died in the line of duty.
What is a Hero WOD?
A Hero WOD is a CrossFit workout named for a fallen service member, first responder or other hero. Most were written by the honoree’s unit, friends or family. They are hard by design, and every one can be scaled for any fitness level.
How many workouts were completed at 24 Heroes 2026?
More than 151 Hero WODs were completed between Saturday, November 7 at 7AM and Sunday, November 8 at 7AM: 151 logged in Wodify, plus more that weren’t. Every one of the 24 hours had people working out, overnight included. More than 70 members took part, and Coach Tony’s crew completed all 24.
Do I have to do all 24 workouts?
No. Most people pick one or two hours. Each Hero WOD is coached and scaled to your level, and many are done with a partner or team, so you can join for a single hour and still be part of it.
Can non-members join 24 Heroes in 24 Hours?
Yes. Friends and family are welcome at 24 Heroes. First-timers sign a waiver before their hour, and a coach scales the workout for them. We share the date and full lineup with our community each fall, ahead of Veterans Day.
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