09/04/2026
Last week, our oldest Koa member turned 80 years old. 🎉
And if you know Mark, you know simply saying “Happy Birthday” isn't nearly enough.
Mark started personal training with me back in 2024 and has been a staple at Koa ever since. He is truly one of those people you just want to sit down and listen to. He has stories upon stories from a life that has taken him all over the world, and I could listen to them all day.
His sport of choice is running…although I'm not sure Mark would actually call it his “choice.” 😂 Long-distance running might be the thing he loves to hate most. But this man has run the Boston Marathon and was actually there in 2013, the year of the bombing. Just one of many experiences tucked into 80 years of a pretty incredible life.
Mark also loves trivia. And jokes. And quotes. This man has a quote for EVERYTHING. I swear sometimes I think Mark made the Einstein quotes before Einstein did. 😂
Somewhere along the way, our training sessions became as much about exercising my brain as his body.
For a while, we had a word challenge. We'd each show up with a word, spell it, use it in a sentence, and try to stump the other person with something they'd never heard before.
Then came the challenge of bringing in a fact the other person didn't already know.
Do you know how HARD it is to tell this man something he doesn't know?!
He keeps me on my toes. He makes me laugh. He challenges me to learn. He has single-handedly brought 60s music back into heavy rotation at Koa, and somewhere between the running stories, world travels, trivia, jokes, quotes, obscure vocabulary and workouts, he has become a really special part of this place.
There are people you meet through your work who remind you what a privilege it is to do what you do.
Mark is one of those people for me.
I'm genuinely so grateful our paths crossed and that Koa gets to be a little piece of his story.
Happy 80th birthday, Mark! ❤️
Here's to more miles, more stories, more words I can't define, more facts I can't use because you already know them, more jokes I've probably already heard…and plenty more 60s music at Koa.
