I started Crossfit in the Summer of 2011, I guess i could say that...
"the rest is history"
as i pretty much instantly fell in love with this sport. There is a lot more to the story and I will try to keep it short.
I have been an active person all of my life, football, wrestling, martial arts, hiking, backpacking, hunting, SCUBA Diving, mountain biking and a plethora of other activities. I have been doing many of these activities since before the age of ten, so being active in my life has never been an issue. Then i joined the US Navy in 1996.
Joining the Navy was great, it showed me the reasons that you can't really list for being physically fit, being in an area of "Conflict" made fitness extremely important, i worked out...A LOT, then I busted up my ankle pretty bad (bad enough, I almost required a below the knee amputation). With the reduced mobility due to being in a cast up to my hip, and the appetite of an "athlete"....let's just say that is a horrible combination, i think my belt is still a bit pissed at me for that one.
That broken ankle was the start of a mostly sedentary life style, i got out of the Navy in 2006 and into a desk job, it was nice...then in 2009 I tried to get into a pair of jeans that i hadn't worn in some time and that was like a big smack in the face. ouch! I could NOT even get them passed mid thigh, i was pretty devastated, that really hurt. I started running again, with the encouragment from a friend i signed up for a 3.1 mile race called a Mud Run, that was SO MUCH FUN.
My very first mud run took me about 40 minutes to complete, to put it into perspective, the course was on a Horse track, at sea level...i was OUT OF SHAPE!!! but the best part was that the little fire inside that made me want to be better, life's little pilot light, was lit again! Almost immediately, i went and purchased a new pair of running shoes and started running, it was nice...it was slow, but i was doing it, almost every day. Then i got bored, running, really? yeah, that was boring. so i started to mix it up.
I had heard about this "CrossFit thing" on the internet and such, so i looked into it, it looked cool! so i started doing "crossfit" on my own (haha...or at least what i thought it was), i added pushups and squats to my running, yeah, i would sprint up the hill, do 10 pushups, 10 squats, 10 situps and then go back to the bottom of the hill and do it all over. about the time i got bored with that, i walked into a real crossfit box. The owner, Rick, had let me try out a workout...you know...just to see if i liked it. what can i say, i was HOOKED. My first workout was on "Tabata Friday", wall walks, passthroughs, knees to elbows just to name a few, i pushed it so hard (i thought) and for the next couple of days i couldn't even pull my own pants up (this is funny if you think about using the restroom at work....). I decided right then, that...
i NEEDED to be a part of the CrossFit
community...
and signed up at that gym and started to look into getting my CrossFit coaching certificate, what better way to learn that just get immersed, right?
So, there i was, a "regular" at the box with either the 5:15 or 6am CrossFit family, 3-5 days EVERY week, and a year later i wasn't bored, there is something cool to this Crossfit thing, Yeah, i signed up to become a CrossFit coach, then immediately earned my USAW Olympic lifting certification. Since that time i tossed around the idea of opening my own box and ended up opening an Equipment supply company instead,
BUFF
(Boise Ultimate Fitness Factory)
was born, more out of need than desire..you see, there really isn't any kind of CrossFit equipment company this side of the Mississippi, and if i was gonna own a gym, i might as well supply it with my own gear. I most likely won't be opening a Gym anytime soon, but i LOVE interacting with all of the various local gyms and helping to make sure that they have the equipment that they need to help make more people fall in love with this sport.
i LOVE teaching people and pushing
people past their own self imposed limits.
I absolutely LOVE to see people light up when they hit a new PR. Most of all, i love the community that i am a part of, the environment is awesome, the people are great, it's always positive. Crossfit seems to have put itself on the same playing field with my kids, i really can't imagine life without them...so, it goes back to the summer of 2011 when i started CrossFit, it's been an exciting journey so far and...
i can't wait to see where it takes me.
