Kristi Pruett had no plans to become one of the top competitors in the CrossFit masters division in the nation when she began working out at CrossFit Sentry in Centralia a decade ago.
Now, she’s in a league of her own.
Four months after placing third in the women's 60-64 age division at the 2025 Masters CrossFit Games in Columbus, Ohio, Pruett placed first overall in her age division at the Bolder Athlete Legends Championship in Tempe, Arizona. The event was held from Dec. 12 through Dec. 14.
Pruett, 61, who currently resides in Napavine and was raised in Lewis County, was perfectly content with working out at CrossFit Sentry, keeping to herself and out of the spotlight. Her first introduction to competitive CrossFit in 2015 was a three-week event called The CrossFit Open, where competitors face other athletes worldwide from their own gym by shooting videos of their workouts and uploading them to YouTube.
Pruett did it “because everybody else was doing it,” but when she placed 15th out of over 4,000 women in her age group, her trainers encouraged her to give competitive CrossFit a real consideration. Her placement qualified her for the Masters CrossFit Games, but she was on the fence at first about taking that next step.
“That’s not really why I’m here. I’m just doing it because I enjoy CrossFit,” Pruett said of her initial thinking. “So they ended up talking me into it, and I went ahead and did it.”
Now, Pruett is fully in the spotlight, and her competitive nature won’t let her back down from a challenge.
Preparing for the Legends Championship was different from any other kind of training Pruett had done. Competitors in the Legends Championship were not given advanced notice of what the workouts included would be, so Pruett had to prepare based on the events in years past. She never truly felt ready, she said, but was confident enough in her moves and training to give it her best shot.
But, according to her coaches, Pruett was more than ready.
“I knew she was ready, and I knew she was going to do well,” Samantha Conzatti, Pruett’s head coach and owner of CrossFit Sentry, said. “She’s really the only competitor in our gym. We’re just a family friendly, functional fitness for life gym. She far surpassed everyone in here.”
In Pruett’s research of previous Legends Championship events, she found that competitive swimming had been on the docket in the past. She could swim, but she was no competitive swimmer.
“I don’t think I had ever actually just swam laps,” Pruett said.
Pruett practiced 50-meter swims, 100-meter swims and even 200-meter swims to nail down her technique and breathing, as well as overall comfort in the water.
Her preparation for all possibilities paid off. Out of six events — two per day in the three-day competition — Pruett finished first place in three events, second place in one event, and fourth place in two events to leave Tempe with the first overall prize in her age division. She competed against 15 women from around the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
The first workout was a five-minute challenge to establish a “max snatch complex,” where she had to do one full snatch and three overhead squats. Pruett took first place by lifting 20 pounds more than any other competitor. Swimming ended up being the second event, and she took fourth.
On day two, Pruett had to perform a buy-in of 30 cleans, then a series of thrusters and wall walks, taking first in that event by 90 seconds faster than anyone else. The second workout of the day included three rounds for time, where Pruett did calorie rows, double unders, toes-to-bars and chest-to-bars. She placed second.
And on the final day of the Legends Championship, Pruett’s first workout included alternating dumbbell snatches and burpee box jumps. Her last workout included 21 shuttle runs, 18 toes to rings, 15 shuttle runs, 12 ring pull-ups, nine shuttle runs and two ring muscle-ups, in that order. Pruett finished the competition by placing fourth in the final event.
Pruett had a significant support group of family, coaches and fellow athletes from CrossFit Sentry in attendance to watch her compete in Arizona. She thanked Conzatti and fellow CrossFit Sentry coaches Eli Newkirk and Kerry Coombs for their help in training her for the event. Newkirk helped with mobility and gymnastics, while Coombs supported Pruett with swimming and gymnastics.
On top of the pressure of making her supporters proud, Pruett was also given a white shirt with bold red text to wear on the second and third days of the Legends Championship declaring that she is the overall leader of the competition. She embraced having the target on her back.
“From the second day, I never took it off,” Pruett said.
“She doesn’t like the spotlight on her, but when it is on her, she does not want to fail,” Conzatti added.
Pruett isn’t certain what the future holds for her in competitive CrossFit. She enjoys the challenge but misses spending time with her family due to the often rigorous schedule involved with preparing for competitions. Pruett typically spends six days a week at the gym for one to two hours; sometimes, she was at the gym multiple times a day.
“I’m just taking it one competition at a time, I guess. It takes me away from my group of people that I work out with because it seems as though when I’m in competition mode, I have to kind of work out on my own,” Pruett said. “[Conzatti] creates workouts for me that are separate from the actual class, so I don’t really get to work out with the class and those people that I’ve worked out with for years.”
Conzatti compared Pruett’s scenario to Dottie Hinson, portrayed by Geena Davis, in the 1992 film “A League of Their Own,” as Pruett never set out to be a competitive CrossFit athlete, is naturally gifted but has her heart somewhere else.
“She’s very involved with her grandkids. She loves her community. She likes to work out without the pressure, and once you decide you’re going to compete, it’s a full-time job,” Conzatti said.
But if Pruett decides to compete at whatever level comes next, nothing will stop her from reaching the mountaintop.
“Once I make up my mind to do something, I’m gonna take that and go with it,” Pruett said.
