CrossFit Athletic Group

Ten years ago, Matt and Bubs were part of a 12-person Thanksgiving Workout session:

On my birthday twelve years ago Mrs. Carey helped organize a Scrabble Theme Workout, which I only just remembered as I began writing this post.

Five years ago Thanksgiving fell on my birthday and, for the first time, there were two other Champions Club people that got to share the spotlight on their special day...

On a recent questionnaire I filled out for CrossFit, I was asked how long was the average membership at our gym. My response was: Life!

I doubt that was any kind of help for whoever was organizing the survey, but I wasn't sure how else to answer that, because I have seen time and time again how trivial concepts like "gym membership" and the like don't really fit well with us: could we really consider Natalie and Zeena "members" as 3rd graders in 2019 when most of their time here was spent picking on JT? Were we supposed to cut ties with Matt after he went on hiatus after 2016? And do we really think we've seen the last of all those old faces in the pictures?

My favorite gift I received today was seeing Carter's gumpy ass walk through our garage door and remember our handshake; he hasn't worked out with us full time since Summer 2019 (if we can call 34% full time) when Mrs. Nevarez put a whooping on him in that running/burpee workout, but I'd fight to the death anyone who would try and convince me he wasn't a "member." Big Kris came in yesterday morning. Shannon came back for a month this fall. Budo came back (with freaking kids!!) for a minute in August. Angie Brunke stopped in before the Summer. Murley(!) jumped in a session last Summer. Madelyn Wesner texted me in September asking if it was too early to reserve a spot for Summer 2025. Owen... probably slept in this morning. Same with Cecilia and Dillon. They'll be back, like, tomorrow, or something.

...........

I took two group pictures today and only one of them will get embedded in this post: the first one had Mr. Lett's eyes closed and the second had Mya's eyes closed. In the first one Mya also turned away in an attempt to get Mr. Gjon to stop talking to whatever polite, nonconfrontational soul was standing behind him and face the camera. As her reward for undertaking such an obviously impossible task: she gets the eyes-closed picture!

There ends up being an uncountable amount of decisions I make during a day's work at the Champions Club, and one thing I have done to simplify the process is boiling any decision down to a simple pick-your-audience answer, and it always ends up falling between people I love, whether its minor things like picture above or workout selection, or more important things like session times and New Kid recruits. Bubs had a great idea to do our own "Turkey Trot" around the block for the workout today, especially considering everyone who's did marathon/half marathon/5k stuff this fall. I liked this idea; it also meant Mr. Malak and Mr. Gjon were not going to be the target audience, as they modified with farmer's walks. A 9 am start meant our peeps going to the Lions game and tailgate would most likely be left out. But if we did it at 10 we might have had more college kids in attendance with an extra hour of sleep.... and might lose some people who have family stuff earlier in the day.

No matter how much thought and planning I try and put into this, I have to concede that there will always be more connections in the Champions Club than I can possibly imagine, not just with our Fall 2024 roster, but with everyone that has been through our doors at some point. If we keep this timeline going long enough, I believe everyone will eventually have more than enough time as the priority; families understand this and stick together, whereas memberships dissolve their connection. The fact that God has given me (us) such a unique and understanding community is something to be thankful for way more often than just the last Thursday in November.

Love you guys for real!

Chris