Member spotlight: MATT PROCOPIO
NAME: Matt Procopio
HOMETOWN: Upstate New York
NEIGHBORHOOD: Upper East Side
MTC MEMBER SINCE: December 2023
TRAINING FOR: Hyrox World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden
If you ever see someone dropping down for burpees between reps of fast 200s, that’s probably Matt—Manhattan Track Club’s resident strong man. He’s a Wednesday morning regular and literally one of the fittest people in the city. Matt and his friend qualified for Hyrox World Championships in doubles at the NYC competition last year.
That race entails running eight kilometers interspersed with ski erging, sled pushing, sled pulling, burpee-broad jumps, rowing, farmer’s carrying, lunging with heavy sandbags and throwing a medicine ball at a target overhead. It’s the perfect activity for someone who first raced the 800-meters in middle school and thought, “This is really hard and kind of sucks, but I like it.”
Matt found MTC the way he found most important things in his life, including his job and his neighborhood: Rob Allen. His former TA at Ithaca College-turned-friend went to one of MTC’s early workouts in late 2023 and immediately texted Matt. “Dude, I think I found us a run club,” he wrote. “It's a perfect balance of good vibes and hard running.”
It was exactly the kind of thing Matt was looking for.
“We kind of show up once a week at 7 and just hammer,” he said. “We really just bond through, like, suffering for an hour”
Matt ran his first marathon in 2021 in Erie, PA with a 61-year-old former coworker who was going for a Boston Marathon qualifying-time. His coworker achieved his goal; Matt got acquainted with the pain cave.
“He was already on his way back to the airport before I finished,” said Matt.
Somehow that didn’t deter him from the distance and Matt took a second crack at 26.2 at the 2024 New York Marathon. It turned into one of his favorite MTC memories. He stumbled upon MTCer Jeremy in Brooklyn and sharing his strategy (survive until 17.5 and then drop the hammer), then found him twice more during the race. When he passed the MTC cheer station on Fifth Avenue, Coach Erin showered him with confetti and Dom handed him a Dirty Water.
“That’s definitely one of my all time number one favorite memories,” he said.
Matt will be in action in all his Hyrox glory at World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden this week. Let’s all cheer him on and be glad it’s him and not us doing burpees!
