Adventure, Fitness and Writing Your Own Story

The first blog post I ever wrote–back in 2005–was called “It’s all about the story.” It’s out there somewhere if you search for it.
My premise was that we do this hard work in the gym to allow the pursuit of adventure OUTSIDE the gym. On your deathbed, you might not care about your max thruster reps, but you WILL be glad you climbed the Grey Sisters in Australia. And the thrusters helped you do it.
In conversation with a friend this weekend, I mentioned that I was in the middle of tearing a beaver dam out of our back field. She said, “You must have the most interesting life.” And that’s a great compliment.
Few of us will ever be the smartest one in our circle.
Few of us will ever be the best-looking.
Few of us will be the wealthiest.
Few of us will win the CrossFit Games or make it to the NHL.
But ALL of us can be interesting. And fitness creates that opportunity better than anything else.
You don’t need money to run a marathon. You don’t need to be a model to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, or be a millionaire to sail around the world. But doing ANY of these three would make you more interesting than any millionaire, model or professional athlete. Infinitely so.
You won’t count your money on your deathbed (I think if you have $5 left at the end, you should give it to the nurse and go out broke.) You won’t gaze at old pictures of yourself or carry the Stanley Cup into the bright light. But your story, if you have a good one, will survive. So I want you to write a good one.
My goal is to create interesting experiences for you. To create new chapters, or funny little episodes that will make you fold the page forever. Many times, when I see people outside the gym, they’ll say “Hey, remember that time I…” and share a story from my gym. Many people have rewritten their life story at Catalyst. This summer, we’re creating some huge opportunities for you to write new chapters.

1. Spartan Race. On September 9, the Catalyst family will race in Duntroon, Ontario. Most of us have NEVER done this before. It’s a fantastic adventure because these races are built with “first-time adventurer” in mind. We’ll have an OCR group coming soon to help you prepare for it.
2. 100km Bike ride. On September 15, 100 people will ride 100km on St. Joseph Island for ARCH. It’s not a race (but some people probably plan to hammer it.) You can do it, and we’ll have a cycling clinic–and 5 new bikes!!!–to get you ready.
3. Catalyst Games. It’s our 11th year of getting people to do their first athletic competition. This year’s event will be team-based, and you already know how to win it: show up and do CrossFit.
4. There’s a ton of other events that Catalyst members are doing this summer. They’re all awesome.

 
Having a training goal is valuable to the point of necessity. Having a road map to help you achieve it is critical. But finishing with a great story–that’s really the goal of all of it. And fitness is the platform to get you there.
 
Ride a bike, run a distance, or tear down a beaver dam: you’re going to need the gym.