NAMPA, Idaho — It's about 5:45 a.m. on a snowy Monday morning in Nampa. Addy Cagle gets a notification on her phone that school has been canceled. It was a snow day in the Treasure Valley, and thousands of kids woke up to that news. Addy's daughter SkotLynd was already up though. She had been lifting weights for around half an hour already.
Multiple times a week she meets her coach, Joe Leatherman, in his home's garage which has been turned into a weight room. They go over her routine. They've been training together for six years, and only about half of those have been the morning workout sessions, which were SkotLynd's idea.
That dedication is a big reason why SkotLynd set a new American record for her age at the US American Open Finals in Atlanta earlier this month.
That potential is something her Leatherman always saw.
“I can remember the first day I met SkotLynd," Leatherman said. "Like I just knew. The way she moved was so much different than the way all of us people with normal genes moved.”
He recalls seeing her for the first time in a CrossFit gym when she was eight years old. He was amazed by her athletic capabilities. He quickly found her mother and asked to be SkotLynd's coach.
Addy knew all about her daughter's abilities. As a toddler she was a daredevil, hanging off the bed, and doing tumbling techniques that surprised the whole family.
SkotLynd tried seemingly everything growing up. Cheer, gymnastics, martial arts, and rock climbing just scratch the surface.
for SkotLynd, weightlifting was just another thing to add.
“Well my mom told me when we were going home in the car," said SkotLynd about Leatherman's weight program. "I’m like 'ugh I don’t know if I want to do another thing’ but I tried it because why not? and I like trying new things. So, I did and I loved it, so I stuck with it.”
Addy praises her daughter's mental maturity and toughness. That showed when she broke the record. On her first attempt, she missed. Leatherman says a lot athletes would have quit at that point. She didn't.
"I kind of went off the stage like oh my goodness what am I going to do," said SkotLynd about missing her first attempt. "Then I just thought to myself, this is not where I need to be right now you know you can do it, you’ve done it like five times before. I just talked myself out of it, and I went and hit the American record.”
SkotLynd has goals of becoming an Olympian in the future which is something both she and her coach think is very possible.
Her mother is just happy to see her grow as a person.
“To keep on pushing, to have a strong mind, a strong empathy for others in knowing what they're going through," Said Addy about what she hopes her daughter can take away from the sport. "And just that work ethic that she already has and she’s had all of her life.”
