On April 5 at 4 p.m., Reality Winner was hustling: She’d just learned she was needed to find additional last-minute female competitors for a Crossfit competition in Corpus Christi—a hassle for the 33-year-old who was already busy with other duties that day, including cleaning out dog kennels as one of the many requirements for her veterinary technology program at Texas A&M-Kingsville.
Winner told the organizers that her two-person team would compete against anyone, even men, in contests designed to test people’s limitations, including lifting gigantic barbells and running and swimming races. In the end, her team tied for second place.
Crossfit has become a way for Winner to blow off steam after returning to Kingsville, where she launched an eclectic but quiet new life after first earning international publicity—and then becoming a convicted felon—for leaking classified information about attacks on U.S. elections. In 2018, Winner, a decorated U.S. Air Force veteran and a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, accepted a plea deal and was sentenced to five years and three months, America’s longest prison sentence ever for the crime of leaking a secret document to journalists.
