I had a Facebook memory pop up on Monday just gone.
It was 16 years to the day that I took the plunge and started working full time in the fitness industry.
Apparently a lot of businesses shut the doors within the first five years or so, and the time in the career of a ‘personal trainer’ is even shorter again on average.
Some people tell me that it is reason to celebrate, that it is a significant milestone.
I felt it was just another Monday haha.
It was suggested that I tell people about it and shout it from the rooftops!
Instead I thought, maybe it is a good time to look back at what has transpired since then.
October 2009
It was quite possibly one of the hottest Octobers I had ever experienced here. But that suited me, the outdoor PT, fine! We could get out and get a sweat on in the outdoors and love it!
I had a mate build a website (all info, no sales!) and I was away. I had two or three one on one clients, a small Sunday afternoon group, and a Bundarra Bootcamp on Saturdays. I would run around to peoples back yards, Rugby League park and out to Bundy in the trusty Commodore ute you still see me in.
I was working casual at a couple of commercial gyms in town to have a little income that was ‘secure’.
Then we head to 2010…
Around Jan/Feb I had someone approach me to do some PT with them, he wanted to book me at the time I had a regular gym shift. So I packed it in and started training him.
I had another pretty amazing client at that time too, he was one of the first clients I had, Stephen ‘Spud’ Ramage, he is still with us to this day, telling us how fucked the workout is when it is hard, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
So all that time I am still doing bootcamps and Bundy.
Then in September the change began. The Dragons had just won the minor premiership again and I had tickets to the GF, how good?!!
Until someone pulled out of a no exit directly in front of me in my ute and I was off the road. The mobile PT business was immobile. I made do, it wasn’t great but I did. And with the help of Spud we began looking for a base! Did I also mention being an outdoor PT in Armidale, in winter, has hairs on it! The frost and dew had me going through several pairs of shoes and socks each day!
We jumped to 2011!
I began working with this bloke named Ric Issac, he claimed his marketing was top notch. So we ran an ad in the paper, full page, and well, we had a bloody full Women’s Only Bootcamp!
It was so much fun three mornings and afternoons a week doing those sessions and all of a sudden I needed people and I became we!
We brought some coaching and admin people on board and in April, Spud had us our base. Jodie and I then spent all of Easter painting it. Never, ever let anyone tell you that painting bessa blocks with a roller is a good idea.
Over that year we grew some more, and in there I ‘discovered’ CrossFit. I put it in inverted commas as I was already training that way, I just didn’t know it until Dane Mitchell, of CrossFit Yamba fame, and now Optimum Allied Health, said here do this workout, whish was super intense, but I loved.
We affiliated!
In Feb 2012 we became the first CrossFit Affiliate in the New England and North West, yes, we had our affiliate here before Tamworth! And this was now the path.
A couple of my old mates from footy, Tom Ducat and Mouse, said they would give it a go, and they loved it. They brought some friends, and then those friends did too and by 2015-16 we were needing somewhere bigger. So by 2017 Spud had come to the rescue again and we were on the move, 50m away, to almost twice the size space!
We had some teething problems with the new space, but ironed them out in a few months.
And for a few years, it was a bloody good time.
End of 2018 through to the start of 2020 I would call a bit of a learning period. Had some things go against us, some ups and pretty big downs. Some people taught me some pretty good lessons. Sure, they weren’t the most pleasant at the time, but I feel like this place here and everyone that is still a part of it now came through it a lot better.
Most of you would recall 2020, and the lockdowns.
This in combination with some other external factors almost saw CrossFit Armidale go by the way of plenty of other fitness businesses.
We battled though.
We persisted.
We did what CrossFitters do. We stuck it through. We got through it.
Over that period of time there was more to contend with than I ever thought could be thrown at businesses. We halved in that 18 month period, and kept the place going with Jodies and my personal savings and a lot of determination and grit.
We got to the end of 2022 and thought oh we have surely seen the last of the horrible stuff.
2023
Jodie became pretty unwell to start the year. After plenty of Drs and specialists visits it was discovered that she had some pretty ordinary autoimmune disorders, just a couple of types of pretty debilitating arthritis, and Coeliac disease. You know, just minor? ( aim being facetious here.) There was plenty going on there that we had to get her through, and oddly enough her doing CrossFit was part of why she was still upright and walking around as her back would have given out without the strength she had gained from it.
Zoe Herbert had come to us when her gym closed way back in 2014, and she said she truly felt at home from the get go.
Both her and Ryan Marshall had become awesome members over the years and both wanted to become coaches. And back in 2019 they both did, and were fabulous right through all of it.
Zoe was diagnosed with breast cancer though and underwent treatments so bloody bravely right through the pandemic and lockdowns and such. And it looked like she had made it through.
Until it took her from us in August of 2023. Fuck cancer.
The people here at CFA at that time were incredible. The support they showed each other and in particular her partner Ryan was amazing. But not just from here, from everywhere, people like Brandon Swann and Jake Douglas that did some huge parts showed me exactly why the CrossFit community worldwide is as incredible as it is.
I haven’t told too many people this part, but that period was harder than 2020 could have ever been.
There is always gossip to contend with, tall poppy stuff, but I realised how insignificant all that is in the last six months of 2023.
My Nan died in July 2023, right when Zoe and Ryan were fighting the battle of their lives. The other two coaches here, Brad and Kirby were dealing with Brads mum being terminal. An old good friend of mine, who was also one of my first clients, died at the start of August just before Zoe, and then my Dad told me my Uncle had stomach cancer. It took him in November. Again, fuck cancer.
Jodie was rock solid through that period, struggling with the treatments they were trying on her that might or might not work, and the side effects.
During this period it was just keep turning up.
We just kept going.
It was after, during the Xmas period it all caught up and I spent almost the whole period recovering.
I didn’t tell you that to feel sorry for me, or any of us really, it is just the realities of life. And it was actually the second time I thought about packing it in during that period.
But I couldn’t. My purpose is to help people, to see more people be better, to live healthily. And I couldn’t walk away knowing there were people that loved this place, the community, what we do that could never experience any of it again.
2024 to now.
The last almost two years has had some great times, and well, like life in general, some not so great. But that is par for the course.
A core value here at CFA is do the 20 mile march every day.
And that is what I remembered in those hard times. To persist, to do a bit each day to keep going, to make this place better and better.
I have seen people come and go from this industry over the years.
I have had some things that felt like betrayal from those I trusted.
But I have had some incredible support from some people I could never have expected it from.
I feel like I have been rambling a bit here, but there is so much for me to be grateful for, and that is what I want to convey here.
Yes CrossFit Armidale has been through so very much, but it is still here helping people everyday.
I am eternally grateful for all of the people that are part of this incredible community her now.
There have been some really ordinary things happen over the last 16 years, but holy shit there have been some fucking incredible things!
All the CrossFit Armidale relationships that have developed, the kids that have been born from members, the partners that have met, the people whose relationships have become stronger, the people that found their strength to make the career change they wanted to but never had the courage to before, the people that shed some kilos but also shed the small minded societal expectations placed on them. And so much more.
And that is it for me, it isn’t the fitness, it is the change in people for the better. Seeing them become more than they ever could have imagined they could be.
This isn’t a celebration of a business anniversary, it is a celebration of the people that have made a difference to all around them just by coming along and doing some exercise in a group.
So thanks for reading or listening, I hope that I can keep doing this until my day to lay down comes.