Year Two

Last week we reviewed our first year in existence – Year One!  What an exciting, new time it was, and lots of new members to experiment on!  In this post we examine Year Two – a year full of more hard work, growth, many more “firsts”, and a year where we started to grow into our CrossFit Kent Island culture as we know it now.  Enjoy.
Year Two
The year starts with an homage to the little dude that really made this gym happen.  This is Oliver, and we started this whole thing because I said to Denee, “I don’t know if I want to keep traveling every week, what if we start a CrossFit gym?”  Instead of shooting it down, she asked me for a business plan, which of course I already had (maybe…) and when it looked semi-promising, we decided to make it happen.  Oliver was less than 1 years old here, and most of you probably know him now as a fixture in the gym.  In the beginning, he was usually sitting in a car seat in the back of the gym, but here we let him get in on some deadlifts for the first time.
 
 
 
In 2013 we also started to follow the CrossFit Games, and two CFKI athletes began to differentiate themselves as competitors.  Most notably, Ryan Matis and Ryan Grantham decided to test themselves at a CF Games workout that most would not attempt – a half-marathon row.  We put the Concept2 rowers outside the gym on a misty evening, and the Ryan’s raced each other for 1.5+ hours.  No one else would attempt this feat, and the pair would cement themselves as the most determined and consistent CrossFit competitors on Kent Island in 2013 and for many more years to come.  Their futures would align later as successful CrossFit coaches in Baltimore and Kansas, and they remain connected to CFKI to this day.
Around the 2013 summer we also began a CFKI tradition of posting our Hero workouts to the wall of the gym.  A Hero workout is one that is created to memorialize a fallen soldier, sailor, marine, airmen, or law enforcement officer that gave their life in the line of duty.  As they sacrificed their life, so do we sacrifice ourselves in their honor in the form of a grueling workout.  It is usually longer, heavier, and more mentally strenuous than other CrossFit workouts, to remind us that in the military and law enforcement communities, “all give some, and some gave all.”  When you spill your heart out in these workouts such as Tumilson here, you will never forget the sacrifice that they made.
Writing these workouts on the wall of the gym is still a tradition we continue at CFKI, and if your name appears here you know you have become a permanent part of our special community.
 
Not so coincidentally, it was also about that time that we began a long-standing tradition of making Friday night a party night!  Our weekday schedule included 5:30pm and 6:30pm classes each day, but 6:30pm was not very well attended, for obvious reasons – everyone wants to hang out with their family and friends on a Friday night.  So one Friday evening, our 5:30pm class finished with a bunch of heavy tire flips, and before the last rep I stashed a case of beer inside the heaviest tire.  When it was found, the 5:30 class cracked a beer to toast to their great week of workouts and general domination, and when the 6:30 class showed up, they went ahead and grabbed a beer too.  And that was the end of our Friday 6:30pm class, and the beginning of something that makes CFKI great – our focus on community and fun!
Later on in the fall, we got involved in the Eastern Shore Affiliate Challenge (ESAC)!  This was the second time we were included, but this time we had a significant portion of our gym competing and it was a blast and a half.  There were lots of fun challenges, from scaling a wall to 1-rep-max snatches to a team swimming event.  A complete test of fitness!  Everyone had a great time, and we got packed up to go.  The results were being announced, but having felt accomplished with our feats and being ready to go, we headed for the cars.  When the Scaled winners were trumpeted over the loudspeaker though, we had to call Lori and Claire back – they had won First and Second place!
This was to be the beginning of a streak of CFKI podium winners in the ESAC, and more importantly the establishment of CrossFit competitions as a great test of our individual fitness and teamwork.  Plus, they are just a really good time!  We have since hosted two ESAC competitions and look forward to more on Kent Island!
In 2013, we also were a part of an inaugural event that continued the momentum we had built with GORUCK and further cemented their ideals of service, personal challenge, and teamwork into our collective mindset.  The GORUCK Nasty was an obstacle course race based on the “Nasty Nick” O-Course (US Army Special Forces) and the BUD/S O-Course (US Navy SEALs).  The special operations cadre of GORUCK designed this course to be the ultimate civilian test of stamina and endurance, and it proved to be just that to our members and all competitors.  Pictured here is Coach Ryan adding his flag to the wall after enduring a long, vertical climb halfway through the course.  Ryan’s brother Barrett is also pictured in the right background, showing the muddy results of an arduous course that wound up and down a sloppy summer ski resort.  The race was hard and resulted in our collective mental toughness for similar events to come, but it also was a great time that resulted in the continued bonding of our members, and the meeting point for Ryan Matis and Grace Kunkel, mow happily married!

Toward the end of the second year, we convened at the Cambridge Beer Festival, which ended up being rained out!
Making the best of it, we had an amazing time, and a joke in a local bar (pictured here) became a motto that has since become a tagline for us going forward:  “GET AWESOME!”
To us, GET AWESOME means to become as healthy, kind, resilient, and confident a person possible.  We aim to GET AWESOME every day in the gym and in our personal and professional lives!
Our second year expanded upon the lessons and successes of the first, and we continued to thrive.  We are looking forward to GETTING AWESOME in years to come!!