Burpeethon in honor of Wynnewood athlete who died suddenly
Walking into CrossFit Main Line, the Ardmore outpost of the national gym franchise, there was an immediate boot-camp vibe. The decor - rough panels of wood boldly marked like cargo with the gym's logo, a suspended hand-pull apparatus flanked by an American flag - signaled an Olympian dedication to athletics.
Walking into CrossFit Main Line, the Ardmore outpost of the national gym franchise, there was an immediate boot-camp vibe. The decor - rough panels of wood boldly marked like cargo with the gym's logo, a suspended hand-pull apparatus flanked by an American flag - signaled an Olympian dedication to athletics.
Beneath the apparatus, a small circle of participants, mostly middle-aged and male, was engrossed in executing leap-frog-like sets of burpees. Pump-up tunes - Macklemore's "Thrift Shop," DJ Snake and Lil Jon's "Turn Down for What" - played in the background.
The 11-hour "burpeethon" Sunday was the culmination of the hundred-day Burpees for Blaine fitness superchallenge in memory of Blaine Steinberg, an athlete and student leader from Wynnewood who died suddenly from a heart attack - an effect of a rare autoimmune disease called Takayasu's arteritis - on March 7, 2014, during her junior year at Dartmouth College. It was just two weeks before she would have turned 21.
The superchallenge and a shorter, monthlong challenge began March 22, Blaine's birthday.
"We were with her two of the three weekends before she died, and she was working out," said Jill Steinberg, Blaine's mother. "The autopsy showed that the arteries around her heart were all inflamed. No one knew she had it, and it was extremely rare."
Blaine was a four-time, all-league player in soccer and lacrosse at Penn Charter before being recruited to play lacrosse at Dartmouth.
Seeking to cope with the shock of Blaine's death, the family established the Live Like Blaine Foundation, a nonprofit that supports the Julie Foudy Foundation. Foudy, once a professional midfielder in women's soccer, was Blaine's idol, and eventually one of her interview subjects for her sports show on Dartmouth's radio station.
"We came up with this mission of empowering young women through fitness and athletics because it embodied everything that Blaine stood for," Jill Steinberg said. "Confidence-building, teamwork, connecting with others.
"We wanted people to challenge themselves, get fit, have fun, and connect with others."
In the time since Blaine's passing, her parents and 19-year-old sister, Leigh, have found separate facets of solace.
"We all feel Blaine in different ways," said Sidney Steinberg, Blaine's father. "I know Leigh feels her most strongly at Dartmouth [where she is a student], and I feel her working out. Jill feels her in organizing [activities] . . . because Blaine was a typical teenage kid."
The 11-hour duration of the Live Like Blaine challenge, which raised $2,000, wasn't arbitrary. Eleven was Blaine's soccer jersey number - the same number worn by Foudy. Meanwhile, the burpee count - 122 per hour - was a nod to both the jersey number and Steinberg's birth date.
Leading up to the burpee marathon, people from around the country and the world - from places as close as Connecticut and Florida and as distant as Dubai and Australia - posted videos of themselves doing burpees on the Live Like Blaine Facebook page, which boasts more than 1,600 likes. Submissions are still coming in.
The Steinbergs filmed a video on Day 5 of the superchallenge for Michelle Obama's "Gimme Five" fitness campaign. "We got her attention," Jill Steinberg said. "Her office e-mailed us and said they liked it. . . . We have a letter from the first lady."
The CrossFit collaboration began a year ago with a conversation between Sidney Steinberg and Daniel Davidson, who owns the Ardmore franchise and another in Wayne. The two had known each other for a few years. Davidson met Blaine when she worked out over college breaks. During the superchallenge, instructors at both of Davidson's gyms led burpee warm-ups.
Blaine "and I really shared a love of working out and a love of CrossFit," said Sidney Steinberg, who completed 1,198 burpees during Sunday's marathon. "We wanted to do something that would bring together community and something that people could do in a dorm room. Mere mortals can do it."
Other participants included Sidney Steinberg's workout buddy Christopher Meredith, nicknamed the "burpee badger" for extreme burpees (think burpee splits); and Rabbi Moshe Gray, a leader of Dartmouth's Chabad chapter, who got to know Blaine through Friday night dinners and the chapter's Birthright Israel trip. During the trip, Gray, whose Instagram alias is CrossFitRabbi, worked out with Blaine in a hotel hallway when she learned that its gym was men-only.
One of Sunday's youngest athletes was Sarah Gross, 8, whose family has deep connections to the Steinbergs. Blaine's sister, Leigh, is Sarah's babysitter; father Mike Gross is Sidney Steinberg's law partner. The Steinberg girls' grandparents are also Mike Gross' godparents.
"My soccer number was also 11 because of Blaine," Sarah said. "I haven't been doing [burpees] for a hundred days, but I've been doing them for a couple."
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