Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast
Run with the pack!
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Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast
Tim K: Metcon Rush
This week I’m joined by Tim Kellinger CrossFit affiliate owner and event director for Metcon Rush, a major growing event that takes place in Maryland! The discussion highlights the power of partnerships and teamwork, focusing on how efficient programming and scheduling can elevate the experience for everyone involved.
I was a huge Bryce Harper fan growing up and then once he got traded to the Phillies a couple of years ago, like in 2017 or 18. Somewhere around there yeah, somewhere around that time Actually it might have been 2019, actually he got traded to the Phillies, kind of followed him over there and then I've been a huge fan. My wife, my son, we're all just like diehard fans. So we went to four or five games up there this year and once five games up there this year and once the playoffs here with my little, my little daughter. She was like less than a year old, took her up there. So just a big baseball fan, played baseball in college, so kind of have a background in that and so, yeah, just love sports in general football, baseball, basketball, all the above dude.
Speaker 2:So I'm out in the philly area, that's where, that's where I live, yeah, so I'm sure you're hyped too, right? So, man, like, how many years have you been putting on this event? You know, at the start of the episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this was our ninth year, ninth year running the event. It started I believe it was nine years and every year it's gotten a little bit bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So it always takes on a new life. But you know, this year I would say, all in all, I satisfied, you know, across the board for the most. But I think, as someone who runs an event like no matter what you do, you always find like the flaws versus like they can take good takeaway. So like it's like one of those things like you might have, like a you people talk about, you have like a post or whatever. It's like a million comments that are all like positive and like there's one that's negative and all you think about is that negative one.
Speaker 2:So for me it's like that's all you see, yeah, all you see, right.
Speaker 1:So, like, I think for me, like, uh, you know, when I go back kind of digest the competition, like I'll always pick out the things that like could be better, um, but I think as a whole, like the feedback was, you know, was pretty positive. So I, you know, I take it as a win and that we did, we ran on time. I feel like the athletes, uh, you know, appreciated the facility and the setup and the workouts, and the athlete experience is always a number one focus for me and so, and also the spectator, as well as our staff, you know, if our staff's not enjoying it, they're not going to come back and volunteer in years to come. So, you know, just the experience across the board is the most important. The most important thing to me I feel like we nailed that this year again with the experience across the board is the most important thing to me. I feel like we nailed that this year again with the experience.
Speaker 1:The takeaways next year always are things like how can we adjust the budget a little bit better next year to maybe not run into some things that we did this year? Obviously, we're working with more and more professionals as we grow. Our team is getting bigger and bigger. But, like this year, we worked with AFJ for the first time, which was great. They're like the, essentially like a professional judging association, and they were great. And I got, I had a really nice sit down, talk, post competition with them and went over some things that we can nail down next year for judging and for volunteers and set up and all that stuff. And then I have my own personal team of, like you know, scoring and, uh, you know our um setup, crew and stuff like that. We kind of sit down and assess what could be better and how we can be more efficient next year. So, again, always kind of running those things across in the back end that maybe like the, the athletes and the spectators don't really see, they might not see some of the hiccups or whatever that happened kind of behind the scenes and so like the goal is back of the house stuff, yeah, and that's that's I mean, that's that's not the goal.
Speaker 1:I don't ever want there to be these, like you know, these meltdowns that anybody would see like in, like you know, in real time, and not that we've ever had any meltdowns, but like this year, um, uh, the system I used uh, it was having some issues because of a tie break that was put in there, so, and we had to basically troubleshoot, like in the moment, and it was all said and done. It was like maybe like five or ten minutes and we got that the leaderboard like where it needed to be, but stuff like that. Like next year, I spoke with the scoring system like hey, how can we make sure this doesn't happen next year? I'm actually even talking about bringing him down to be on site, so. So next year with the scoring there's no, you know, chances for any issues.
Speaker 1:But all in all, long story short, I'd say I give us a, you know, relatively, I give us an A for sure. We did a good job in a lot of areas. I'm already again, you know, give myself like a week off post-competition, so I'm already diving back into like calls for, like potential partnerships and sponsorships and you know, kind of you know what we can do programming wise to get a little bit more dynamic.
Speaker 1:And that's all yeah, but I think, all in all, I'm definitely happy with how it ran, for sure.
Speaker 2:So running with that idea right there, right, like, take me back to year eight. Year eight ends, you give yourself your week or two off, you come back and you start making the moves for the directions for year nine, like what did you want to do with this year? Like how do you do the programming? Do you have someone do it for you? Like what did you want to test? And then we'll kind of go from there on, like the other things you wanted for the year nine.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I feel like you know, I would say, out of the nine years I've run the event, I would say I'd really say the last three or four years we've really nailed down like running it a certain way. We've had hiccups in the past where it's like we ran super late or we had this happen and that happened and like, and I think one thing I've always tried to do is not to reinvent the wheel Like it's because we did really well, it's okay, let's go even far further, beyond this and the next, you know, you kind of compromise the product. So I think the one thing I sat down we thought about is what did we do really really well and how do we build off of that? So, whether it was the floor setup, the transitions for equipment, like how do we keep this thing rolling? So that again, a lot of downtime.
Speaker 1:You know, we, you know, and so some of the things that went into year nine were like, okay, we have, if I want to add, more athletes we got to have a second competition for. So right now, like I would say, any competition director would tell you, the hardest part about running competition is getting the help you need, right. So, like, obviously like there's a certain number of athletes that you can have where you don't, you, you need a certain amount of volunteers and judges, right? So as you start to get these, these bigger numbers, in order to run the event, you have to have more athlete control, more judging, more staff, for you know.
Speaker 2:Discellaneous stuff like parking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you need all kinds of stuff, right. You need more MCs, you need more, you need more DJ or more set up for music and sound systems and all kinds of stuff. So everything is magnified right. So I knew this year I wanted to add a secondary floor and it was just for, like, we did it for a lift this year. That would allow for us to add an RX individual division and add more teams and be able to run our day where we can be done around 530 each day. I mean, at the end of the day, I don't think athletes want to be there until 9 o'clock at night. I don't want to be there until 9 o'clock at night.
Speaker 1:I know our volunteers don't want to be there and obviously you start mixing in the cost of the facility and how much that's going to go over, so all those things that play a part as far as the timeline of the day and the day, and so you know that was the big thing. Finishing year eight, how do we get more athletes, how do we grow? And so that the first thought was, okay, we need to create a second competition floor. So that was the first thing we kind of decided. And then from there it was figuring out okay, how do we, you know, run two floors at one time? How do we do it efficiently, effectively? And we kind of sat there and just kind of brainstormed a little bit how we can do that and then from there programming comes into play, right, so like figuring out, like, okay, we have barbells on one floor, the second on the secondary floor.
Speaker 1:The first floor obviously can't have barbells because I don't have enough. So, like I'm one of the, I'm probably one of the few competitions I could be wrong in saying this where I own everything, everything you see in the competition. Now, if you're running a competition at your local gym, then that's different.
Speaker 2:You probably obviously yeah, not not that. Yeah, yeah, you're supposed to be different off-site at another location.
Speaker 1:Um, nine times out of ten you're probably running that stuff, or trying to create some sort of a partnership where you get some more equipment. So we I own all that stuff, and it's been a little bit tougher. I've tried to reach out to some competitions, more or less like smaller stuff, like hey, I can't get some extra barbells or weights Just to kind of have whatever we need, in case you know, or if you want to add more options for, like you know, people to warm up or whatever the case may be. And so, you know us, being in Marylandland, there's a lot of barbell manufacturers in our area, a lot of them, like in florida, uh, yeah, or, like you know, georgia area I think you actually have rogue, who's a little bit more. Obviously, getting involved with them is a little bit, a little bit tougher, but so, um, it's one of those things where, like you know, uh, you know, we are somewhat limited when it comes to equipment in that regards, right, so I don't have like 30, 40 barbells to play with that are, again, brand new.
Speaker 1:I have all brand new stuff that we use for our competition, all my gym barbells and weights. We use that for the warm-up area. So I don't want to intermix those bars because, again, you want to make sure everybody has the same barbell, the same quality of barbells, so on and so forth. So the next thing with programming was figuring out, you know how are we going to set up floor two and floor one so that there's no issues with barbells. And if we do have a barbell at some point on that main floor, how do we get it back there without having to, you know, overwork our staff? So again, the programming came in next and then from there it was a matter of working with our the head of all of our equipment, our equipment.
Speaker 1:you know, whatever you call her, she's the head of that staff or whatever. She kind of oversees and facilitates what goes where. We have. You know, we have, you know, pdf drawings of the competition floor where the bars go, what waits here? Then she oversees the regular staff of the equipment staff and kind of lets them know hey, this needs to go here at this time, and so on and so forth. So once I met with her we went over a lot of stuff. We kind of drew it all together and made sure that everything was going to be nice and, you know, realistic for a good you know good, easy day for everybody.
Speaker 2:And so make sure the day makes sense right.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, just make sure the flow is well, we're not stretching ourselves thin in certain areas and again making it so that the flow is relatively seamless. Um, so yeah, so that was kind of the process was again. And as far as programming, uh, you know, I've been programming for a gym for the last 12 years. I was pretty competitive up until I had some injuries myself. So kind of have an idea like you know domain wise, you know weights, different uh, you know um, areas of what I like to see as far whether it's you know creating, uh, you know a little bit of, uh, compound, you know interest with, you know grip and uh, you know interference and stuff like that. Or if you know there's different unique uh you know experiences. Like I think I have a relatively I'm not, you know good mind for that.
Speaker 1:I'm a big fan of, you know the, the regional semifinals across the game, so I could open. I've watched every event. So I kind of right, I'm a good mind for that. I'm a big fan of the regional semifinals across the game. I've watched every event. So I pick some of that stuff and mix and match my own flair and whatever we have available and try to program something that would be fun across all the different divisions we have Having an, an elite division, rx division and then having your rx teams.
Speaker 1:You're having your scale teams, your masters. The goal is to create the best event at that level, right? I'm not a big fan of like programming something from one division and scaling it for everybody else. I just think how to make it the best event at their level, just in case you have someone who floats in between rx and the scale, that they can still get the best workout without having to like modify a toe-to-bar to like an ab mat sit-up or whatever the case may be. So we still make sure they get the best program they can get while still flowing with the rest of the programming as far as what's on the floor, what's coming off, what's going on and making it all you know kind of flow and and be kind of, you know, copacetic as far as what we're doing.
Speaker 2:So what was your uh, your your workout highlight from this year? What was your favorite workout to watch? What was your favorite workout the program?
Speaker 1:tell us about that yeah, I mean unfortunate part is I didn't get a chance to watch a lot of the events. That's the one that kind of sucked is like I got enough going on. Unfortunately, sometimes we're getting to the point now I've really decreased the hats I wear. I think that in the first couple years I was trying to do it all. It's the scoring, the, you know, breaking down the um athlete, the, uh, the judges, briefings as far as what the standards are and what the workout was trying to mc do, all these different things again one yeah I couldn't afford to really take that off my plate yet.
Speaker 1:but also I wasn't willing to kind of take that off my plate yet. But also I wasn't willing to kind of take that off my plate because I wasn't trusting. I have a hard time sometimes letting other people help me in areas of my life because either A I feel like it's my responsibility or B like maybe it won't get done a certain way. So trusting that? Yeah, delegating is a tough skill, you know. Yeah, delegating things was huge for me. So I think once I started delegating those different positions, I was able to be more of a freelance guy, like move around and kind of have moments to absorb the event, have time to kind of interact with the vendors and some of the athletes and also be able to coordinate with areas that need to be coordinated with.
Speaker 1:But I think, as far as like the programming, it's definitely evolution Like I've never. I don't think I've ever written a workout where, like that was just that was the workout right. Like I've actually already written all the workouts for next year and they're going to grow right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And now then, like things change, like you know, whether it's I get, we decided to buy different equipment, or I do land someone that does want to work with us, which this year there are some additions. I've got to the point now there's certain things I just don't want to own, because most of the stuff you see I keep in a c container and so it only gets used for mechon rush. It's completely separate from my gym and so, um, I'm getting the point now where, like housing, a lot of the stuff is is getting tight and I don't know that I want to. There's certainly like I don't want to own ghgs, I don't want to own VHDs, I don't want to own benches. There's certainly guys don't want to own because they take up a lot of space, a lot of dead space, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So like I'm trying to work with some companies to get those things so that I can just have them and then get in and kind of send them back. So I am working with a company that looks like it's going to work out for us for next year to get some stuff that plays a part. Obviously I like to have it be and then can I actually get the stuff to make it work and then from there we test it. I look for a certain stimulus, a certain time domain, and then obviously I like to program the workouts from a spectator standpoint too, so like you can visually see who's in first place, you know where are the workouts going. So it's also like visually appealing, and so those all kind of go into play as I'm doing it and programming it and testing it.
Speaker 1:So I think one of the workouts this year that I thought was kind of it was pretty visually appealing to watch, was kind of was pretty cool was we had a um, we had one workout that period. What handstand walks? That that was pretty cool. That that had different variations of a handstand ramp walk. It had a variation yeah, I like that all right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it had a variation of um doing like almost like an obstacle type handstand wall or pirouettes, and that was a pretty cool workout to see people navigate that and how they would work through that pirouette, um up and down the competition floor from the elite standpoint. Um, the final workout was really cool because it was such a fast race. It was cool seeing people go from uh start to finish. That was. That was a really neat workout as well. Um, and I'm not gonna lie, I don't think I watched one team event, unfortunately, but I test, I test them all and I think my personal, my my favorite event for the team workout was, um their event three, which was a combination of like rope climbs and some some barbell work and some shuttle runs. It was cool to kind of again, I think the more you can use your competition floor, yeah, space it out the cooler it is.
Speaker 1:So like um, stuff like that, but um, um, yeah, I think overall the programming um this year was, was, was again, it's creative, it was, at least, you know, in my eyes it was creative, it was thoughtful and I I do believe it. Ultimately, you know the best, you know athletes came out on top based on what we program. I'm a big fan of programming to let the athletes their fitness kind of shine, versus like throw roadblocks in there and then make it so like you know there's, you know the things that are that kind of just interrupt. You know basic CrossFit, you know workouts and the methodology and so on.
Speaker 2:Right, so how did this all get started? Man like where did you first start crossfit at?
Speaker 1:so I, when I got done with college, I was playing baseball and, uh, that was kind of my identity. I've been playing my whole life huge into sports and once my senior year ended, I was like man, like I don't know what, I don't know what to do. I was still playing some like some wooden bat, league baseball and stuff like that. It was fun, but I mean, I was, you know, you play on the weekends and it just wasn't as competitive and so I was just, you know, I got into the gym a little bit more. I was kind of doing the regular gym thing and, um, that was kind of my new thing. I was really really competitive with trying to change my body as much as I could, um, and so eventually, you know, I was always big into like the variance, regardless of if it was bodybuilding or what I was doing. It's because I had adaptation, the real thing. And so I was always looking for new workout plans or whatever, and I stumbled across this was back in 2012,. I stumbled across a video of Rich Broening, which I'm sure most anybody I've done crossed it as long as I have, would they? You know, rich ron is the reason why they got into crossfit. But I found a video of him at the game 2012 and I was in the parking lot at the gym. I was going through and I went inside and I showed my body like dude like this is have you heard of crossfit before? He's like no, I don't. I don't think I'm like. These guys are like freaks. They look like just the, that's what I want to look like, and then on top of that you can compete. And so, having that, that mindset of an athlete like I wanted to still compete, it was cool that I could potentially, you know, keep that like kind of that, that mindset alive.
Speaker 1:And so at first I was a little hesitant because that time I had been doing with the bodybuilding thing for so long like I'm gonna have to do crossfit. I'm, you know, I'm not gonna be strong anymore, I'm gonna lose my size. And so I did my first workout. It was, you know, a very like you know, I think it was at my, my parents' house and I was in like the, the, the, the front, the back of the house and the little area that was concreted out and my, my dad's truck rack. I turned up upright and put some like concrete bags on the sand so it wouldn't move. I put an old barbell on there and I did fraying it was like such a janky way to do it right and so I had my barbell, I did my thrusters and I did kind of a pseudo kip last trick pull up on that bar because I didn't have a kip or a butterfly at the time.
Speaker 2:No one did it that time right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did it that time right, yeah, did it, and it was kind of raining outside. I was like man, this workout destroyed me and I waited like I'm gonna do it again.
Speaker 2:So I did it again yeah, do you remember where you you saw fran, like were you reading like dot com at that point, like where were you seeing these workouts?
Speaker 1:I think I probably found that workout just from videos right, youtube was my like my go-to at the time like I learned how to do most of my CrossFit movements just from watching, like Spieler and guys like that back in the day, oh yeah, I threw out those demo videos and so I probably saw it there honestly and I just did it. It was probably, you know, none of those reps I counted as far as depth and stuff like that at the time, cause I had a lot of mobility just because of like a little bit of over development of, like you know, from bodybuilding and stuff like that. And so I thought, man, this is pretty cool. And, um, I was still wasn't a whole hundred percent sold out, I was still doing the whole bodybuilding thing. And then at the gym I was at the time it had some space behind the building and we would do some stuff, some random stuff, right, like you know, we might do some cleans or we might do some attempts, ring muscle ups and eventually, um, you know, my buddy with my best friend from high school was like you know, let's get a, let's get a place together, and I was like at the time I had been buying like some road plates and bumpers. I'm like the only, like you know, situation I have is I have to go do my crossfit thing. And so we found a place with like an unfinished basement and I set up my barbells in there and my rings and I'm doing that stuff there at the time.
Speaker 1:And and a good friend of mine moved back into the States. He was in the military and he was driving to the college that he was going to and missed the exit and found a CrossFit gym. I didn't know that any CrossFit gyms existed at the time and he's like, dude, I found a CrossFit gym man, you got to check it out and so I called him to work. The next day. He's sick and did crossfit there, right, and it was. I never forget the first workout was like this, like wall ball ladder that they had going on or whatever. Um, so I did that and I had a blast. And then, uh, I decided to join that gym and the owner at the time was the on-floor game announcer for the crossfit games and he's like um, um, um, you know, travis bajan's his name. I don't know who travis is. Travis is like yeah, yeah, world champion arm wrestling, the biggest. You know, travis bajan's his name.
Speaker 1:I don't know who travis is travis is like yeah, yeah, world champion arm wrestling, the biggest, you know personality wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 2:Travis with his son tyson. That was the gym that's funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, first time I went to cross the 304, so like tyson was like 10 years old when I was there running around yeah, yeah I have the bears or whatever, but like, yes, the charlestown west virginia is where they're from and I lived in maryland and so I drive 40 minutes to this gym and uh, travis was the owner and his wife and his other kids were there too, right, so I'm doing my crossfit thing there and I'm kind of like you know, uh, you know learning from from travis the ins and outs of like crossfit and he brings me on as a coach and some coaching classes there.
Speaker 1:And uh, the next thing I know I was like man, you got, you got to open up your own gym. Man, you got to do that, that new, the CrossFit thing. And I'm like man, maybe, maybe I should, you know. And so the next thing I know I'm like man, like I wouldn't mind opening up my own gym Cause like, if I do that, I can work out all day, long years, let's go, I'm 26. I'm like, okay, this is a great idea. And so I think I was at his gym. I did the opener that year, so that was probably.
Speaker 1:I joined, probably like late January, did the open, and then I opened my gym up in June. So it was like, and I'm like you know, and I'm and I'm so, yeah, it was through travis I got my um, he got me my level one, so I got, I actually got certified at rogue, which is pretty cool back back of the old rogue drove to ohio. You know, he got me working with crossfit. I was able to get, which was awesome at the time. I didn't have the money. Like he got me certified for free, so I couldn't really complain.
Speaker 1:Like I got some good news. I got some bad news. The good news is I got you in to get certified. The bad news you gotta drive to columbus, ohio. So I had to drive all up there for the weekend to get certified and so uh did that. And then came home, uh, I found a spot for my gym that I wanted to open up and then we opened up in june and so uh, I did that while working my full-time job. I worked as a. I was like a it help desk guy, kind of fell into that job mostly because I had pretty good customer service skills. I was able to talk my way into it.
Speaker 2:I'm a good talker.
Speaker 1:So I was able to be like, yeah, you know, I can do this, I can do that. I kind of talked myself into that job. I was doing that for a couple of years. I was working on a military base during the daytime fixing computers. I drive up to Frederick and I drive to Hagerstown where my gym is and I would coach classes at nighttime and I would do that all day. You know from. I'd wake up at 5 am and get to work at whatever 7, get off at 4, drive to Hagerstown, try to do a quick workout, teach the 5, 36, 37, 30 class. I did that for like two months and I was getting pretty burnt out and I was was like you know what. Like I think I just want to try to dive in, add some morning classes and see what happens.
Speaker 1:So I quit my job and offered some morning classes and, you know, at first nobody was coming at all. I was out watching more youtube videos of crossfit and then kind of working out or whatever, and then, uh, eventually started taking off and, um, you know it's. You know I've been doing analysis june 8th 2013, so coming up on, yeah, I guess, this past year, 11 years we've been open. So uh, yeah definitely, yeah, it's definitely a wild trip to kind of even relive it and talk about that. Yeah, it seems like forever ago, man.
Speaker 1:But uh so yeah, yeah, that's how I got into crossfit. I stumbled upon it randomly on a youtube video and then I, you know, like I said, I went to Travis's box. He talked me into it. I already kind of had thoughts about maybe doing it, but, like I think, his confidence kind of pushed me into doing it and so I just thought the worst thing that happens is that I fail. I'll go back to this. You know, working a desk job again is what it is. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So I was all in man and that's kind of in my mindset, like. Whether it's kind of in my mindset, like whether it's baseball or whether it's CrossFit, my gym or it's my competition, like I'm all in, like there's nothing that will. The more I hear no, the more the harder it's supposed to be, the more I'm like, okay, cool, you know I'm sitting digging harder, you know. And so I saw it in my mindset and so, yeah, so I was all in and I've, I've been all in since opened it up. That's sick dude.
Speaker 2:Dude, I just got one question about Travis. Have you ever seen him absolutely smoke? Somebody in arm wrestling the challenge him.
Speaker 1:When I first opened the CrossFit gym up, travis had a great idea. He is a man of many good ideas. Honestly. He had this idea. It's this thing called Metcon Wars and it was. You take your top athletes from your gym and you go around and you bring it like so it'd be like our top gym goers, this other top gyms, athletes, and we all meet up at one location and we all work out and the winner is the.
Speaker 1:You know, you know the champion yeah you know their gym and you can keep having different locations. So we did for a while. One of the competitions we did was at a freaking bar in charlestown, west virginia, where he had an arm wrestling competition beforehand. Then afterwards we're doing this competition, like in this back room, like where all these, like you know, biker guys and arm wrestlers are watching this workout. It's pretty crazy. So yeah, I've seen that's sick oh, yeah, he's, he's, honestly he's.
Speaker 1:He's a great dude in many aspects. He's super smart. He is uh, he's a great businessman. He's an entertainer. He's obviously a dominating athlete. Like he's a good dude man. I always enjoy being around him Pumped. I actually, you know, followed the bears because of that, I don't know. He said he was 10 years old when I was at the gym.
Speaker 1:So, I'm not. He was a runaround to his brother Ezra. They all did cross at the time. They could all walk on their hands and do muscle-ups. It was crazy. So I've kind of kept tabs on him over the last couple of years just because of Travis and the Bears. I definitely root for him to do well. I talked to Travis, like I said, this past June no, it was past, maybe June probably and asked him about coming out. He said I'm not sure it's because of tyson's preseason and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:if he can make it, man, we talked about the arm wrestling thing or whatever, and so, who knows, that could always be a potential uh, one of the coming years. You'll see it out there, I can't rush. Yeah, dude, that's dope man. So you, that's a quick toner turnover. You said like the open, so february, march time period and then june you're open in the facility. Like it was great, like how did you find it so quick? Like tell me about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean realistically, like I think, like most of the older boxes like you probably don't call them boxes anymore, they're more like these you know, uh, you know studios now or whatever you want to call them. But the older gyms, I feel like you got away with more stuff we could open up with limited equipment, limited resources and be able to kind of build like my members built the gym I had today, versus now. I think if I opened the gym today I'd have to have, you know, everything we need all the equipment, all the rubber, all the, all the rigging. Like it's very difficult now. Most of these, these gyms that you know kind of offer the premium services like every almost. You have to kind of come into it with everything you need.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, for me, like kind of what we did is okay, like the first thing I needed to do was find a location and so the place I was living at. At the time I had some blueprints for a place that I was looking at. I had a friend come over and said you know what are those blueprints for? I said I'm trying to find a space to open up across the gym and he didn't know across it was. But we kind of talked about a little basic. Hey, I think I have a place, my dad is trying to lease out some space, like I can talk to him for you, and so, long story short, his mom, his dad, owned a location that had, like, uh, curves in it and I guess the person wasn't paying the rent. So he was able to kind of overtake the facility with all the equipment so that you know kind of got you know whatever he was owed for lack of payment, and so his wife took over that space and made up her own little gym.
Speaker 2:It was kind of a hobby it was about.
Speaker 1:I'd say at the time it was probably like 1500 square feet, it wasn't very big, and so she wanted to be done with it because it was just a hobby and she's like, yeah, I don't want this anymore. If you want the space, like you can take it over. And so that happened pretty quick Definitely a God thing. I mean it was crazy how like it all kind of came together. You know, just was pretty unique. And so we found that space and then from there, kind of just you know talking to Travis, like what do we need to have like 11 people in class? And so we, you know, wrote down how many barbells, how many plates, how many ab mats, how many jump ropes, how many kettlebells, just stuff that you could use to kind of fill in a class. And then from there I was able to, with my brother, we were able to go in. He believed in what I wanted to do, so he was going to kind of help me invest in opening up the business, and so I saved a good bit of cash from working that desk job and living at home with my parents a little bit Thank you, shout out to them for letting me live home for a little bit after college and we threw some cash down and I was able to buy enough equipment and, you know, put some money in the bank for some rent and then, you know, open the space up with what it was and so, yeah, again you came together pretty quick. So finding that space was number one. Then Travis helped me get that certification, because you can't own an affiliate without your L01. So I got my L01. And then one of the coaches at that gym had bought an affiliate but wasn't using it, so I was able to buy him and back then it was crazy just how easy it was. I literally was talking to Kathy Glassman at the time, which I believe was obviously Greg's wife, about transferring the affiliate over to me so that I could transferring over that affiliate and then, obviously, having our program opening. It was all pretty quick. And so I think actually so.
Speaker 1:My buddy's mom. She wanted to move her location to another location that her husband had owned, so we had to move all of her stuff out before I could even move my stuff in. So for opening up on Saturday, on Monday I'm moving her stuff out, right, and again, call her to work, use all my PTO. Hey, you know, I got the Ebola virus basically All week right. I had to figure out how to call out all week and so we move all of her stuff out on Monday and Tuesday. And I have Wednesday, thursday, friday to move all my stuff in to Monday and Tuesday. And I have Wednesday, thursday, friday to move all my stuff in to paint. It was nuts, we're up.
Speaker 1:I was like literally from the second I woke up to like midnight we're in this place. If you drove by eight o'clock on fricking Friday, you know there's no way people were opening up their gym on Saturday, cause it was a mess. My brother and my sister and my dad, we put it, we got it all together, had our opening on saturday. I mean it could open. I want to take 30, 40 people randomly showed up to kind of text it out and see what's going on and but yeah, I was a, really it was. I mean, like I said, I can't imagine trying to have that same mindset and and like, basically, like business plan to open up a gym in 2024 to been probably not very successful. So and then from there, like I mean, you know, and again that's the one thing I think that's made us so like long lasting is is that we went in with, you know, cash. So I had no loans to begin with, other than like, um, uh, well, later on I've since purchased the building I'm in, I own the building, so that's the only loan I have but went in with no, no loans, all cash base, you know bought everything we needed and then, as we needed more stuff, our members paid for that stuff. You know, we, you know, as members came in, we made more money.
Speaker 1:My first year I worked. I didn't take a single paycheck. I literally worked for free for the first full year, let the bank account kind of build up and then, um, after that it was like maybe like 200 bucks a week. I paid myself and then I did that for a while and then again let the bank account build up and then, that way I knew we were going to be sustainable. I had some savings. I kind of live off a little there and yeah, and so from there it was just a matter of just, like you know, always staying within kind of our own means and not ever, you know, putting the business in a situation where we could be in trouble because I wanted to get a $50,000 loan to have this, that and the third, and so, yeah, and that's just kind of how it grew.
Speaker 1:And then eventually, you know, we sat right out of the crossroads. It was like, do we leave here and rent a bigger facility or what do we do? And we were like, within seconds of signing like a contract with an 8,000 square foot space. But we had our lawyer look at it and it was too many gray areas for, like that lease verbiage. And we're like like, you know what, why would we do this? And you know, it had an escalation built in there for our rent and, uh, you know, thinking back on it but that would have been in 2016 or 17 that escalation took us into covet, which would have 100 put us out of business, because that time we would have been shut down and then the amount of money we'd own monthly on that space would have been just not, not feasible.
Speaker 1:So we kind of came back regrouped and I ended up talking to my buddy's dad, who owned the building. I'm like is there any way you want to sell this place, like? And he's like, yeah, I don't want to. I don't really don't want it anymore. And so, yeah, he's like you know, I'm trying to kind of retire and I want to kind of release all these assets and kind of get myself free, and so we were able to get a portion of it financed through the uh, through our bank, and another portion he personally financed at a fixed interest rate, which is pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we bought it and so, uh, that's been the. You know, again, it's owned through a separate lsp so technically the gym is not on the hook for it, so even then it's not even there's no real implications from a from a loan standpoint on my actual affiliate. But yeah, so it's just been one of those things. Over the years and after that we've added more space to the facility. The building itself is 6,000 square feet, so we've added more space. I have tenants that help pay for the facility and stuff like that, and just you know, yeah, it's been a pretty interesting journey, you know, to get to where we are today, honestly, as far as owning the affiliate, that, to get to where we are today.
Speaker 2:Honestly, as far as owning the affiliate, that's for sure. That's awesome. It's an awesome story, dude. So this will be the first episode that I say this on. I'm actually opening an affiliate too, just about at least like two weeks ago.
Speaker 1:Awesome feeling, dude. You're going to love it. Man, it's definitely. I mean, it's a lot of work, but it's if you love. It's like the old saying like if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life like it'll. There'll be. There's definitely days of frustration and like whatever, but I had the best job in the world I'm talking to you at one o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean like my someone coaching classes. You know some of the classes this morning for me. I had to go in for a little bit, come back and go back tonight. I had some other people coaching classes for me tonight. So it's like I have time to like pick my son up from school. I have the ability to have my family there. I have days where I can, you know, just go help my dad if he needs me to help him for a little bit. Like there's, instead of being locked down at that nine to five job at a desk, like there's a lot of flexibility. You have to help people get their first, you know. You know not even just their first like pull-up, but you can help people like go from being chronically ill to just moving and that changed their lives their lives and make them feel you built their self-esteem, you build up the confidence you create, like these friendships.
Speaker 1:There's some people that might come in that, don't you know, they're pretty introverted. Now they have to be kind of pulled into being a little more extroverted because the class, you know base, you know system makes you, you know everybody's so open. It's like hey, what's up, how's it going? It pulls that person in. All of them they have this, you know, maybe they're in a position to be more outgoing and things like that. And so you just you feed every different walk of life and so that's a very unique position to be in. I think you're going to have. You had your kid be coached at another gym before.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so I just left being a full-time coach, like well, actually, for the past four years. My first head coaching job was right before COVID 2019. I got hired there and then, obviously, the vid shut everything down. That gym, that gym owner was trying to sell his gym and I wasn't ready to own an affiliate at the time, so I left there, took another head coaching job and now it's time to move on, you know, to my own place.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm laughing when you're talking about expediting your affiliate process, right, because, like I know, like when you're sitting around for like days and weeks after you submitted your paperwork and I can only imagine the process gotten long since 2012, you know but now it's like every email you get, it's like all right, wait the next three weeks for our next email, you know, but yeah, so that process just got wrapped up for me, just got the, the name approved and everything so I think, I think, going like the route you did, like the one thing I had to learn, I had to learn how to be a really good coach on top of being really good at programming, on top of being like a really good like business owner because I didn't have that much experience right and so I think, obviously for you, going from being a coach and understanding how to facilitate the classes and and run everything and the customer service that goes involved with that, like it's going to be such an easier process for you than it probably ever was for me, because I had a juggle.
Speaker 1:Okay, it goes back to me saying oh man, I'm going to work out all day and become the next crossfit guy and I see, I realize, like dude, I'm, I'm mopping, I'm cleaning, I'm doing this yeah I'm working on builds like actually my fitness at first, kind of like kind of struggle a little bit and I'm like oh my gosh, like this is not fine, and then eventually I learned how to balance it all. But I think for you, going from that situation that you were in to now, it's going to be such a huge blessing because you'll have so much more experience.
Speaker 2:And I did a bunch of that stuff already. You know a bunch of that mop it and everything. So I know, I know what that stuff entails. You know I'm ready for it.
Speaker 1:What'd you say?
Speaker 2:What's the name of your affiliate going to be so, just like the name of the brand I've had, hungry Dog Barbell has been a USAW club. The name of the CrossFit gym is going to be CrossFit Hungry Dog Athletics, and that's the name of the business name also.
Speaker 1:So yeah, good for you. That's exciting, dude. You don't have to follow the page and follow along.
Speaker 2:That's cool, hell, yeah, so hope. You know, like not just working in the space, but being able to have I started the podcast in 2020 during covid, because I had all that extra time, you know. So, uh, this is going to be episode like 170 or 171 so being able to have all those conversations with different number of people about all their different um experiences too, you know that that helps, and and that's not just one thing I love about podcasts, it's one thing I love about the crossfit space. Like you were talking about meeting different people. You know like this has quickly become a resource for me to like pick so many different people's brains, you know, share their stories, but then also I get to hear it myself, you know, while I'm having the conversation. You know so do. One of my favorite questions to ask people is, besides like the open, like you're at your box, and besides seeing Froning at the games in that picture, what was your first time ever seeing a live CrossFit competition?
Speaker 1:I think, at any level, at any level.
Speaker 2:Any level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so honestly, this area is relatively rich in CrossFit competition. At least it was back in the day and there was I think my first year. I think was it my first year of owning the day. And there was, I think my first year. I think was it my first year of owning the gym. Might have been my first year opening the gym up. Uh, there was a girl who that she has competed at regionals a couple times. Uh, she said, hey, there's a competition in baltimore, do you want to do with me? I think it was like literally the first year. It was in the first couple months of opening the gym up. And so we drove down to baltimore and I, you know, the majority of my gym, which at the time wasn't saying much because I might've had like 50 members maybe at that time, so maybe like 25, 30 of them came down to watch this competition.
Speaker 2:That's sick though that's a lot.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, it's definitely. I will say this there's definitely like, at least for my gym, there's a pre-COVID CrossFit type of like mindset and community and there's a post-covid where it's like I feel like, yeah, before covid man, like it was, you know, everybody was there five, you know five, six, seven days a week. It was like it was all in and I feel like the fitness community as a whole is got a little bit more towards like. You know, it's just kind of like I don't, it's just not, I don't. I guess it's because the longer it grows, longer it's kind of like the, the longevity of the actual like sport and CrossFit itself, the further it obviously gets away from like the beginning where it was like, so raw. I mean everything about CrossFit was raw. I mean your whole entire gym didn't know how to do any movements, so they're all learning it together.
Speaker 1:Crossfit, the sport is so young, so like everybody's all and everybody wants to compete. Your whole gym wants to sign up for the open. The whole gym wants it. You know what I mean. Like now, like for sure, like for sure. It's like, ah, maybe I'll do the open, maybe I won't, and I guess it's like I'm okay with that. You know I'm. You know it's more like I'm. I'm here for my longevity, which I think is obviously the most important thing. But like that, that rawn the way CrossFit was in the beginning was so much fun I guess if you weren't there in the beginning it was just so cool to see like how deep All the hard Kool-Aid drinkers, people that really dove in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just straight up, like crushing the Kool-Aid, but yeah, so that was my first experience with it and you know, we got into that Metcon Wars I talked about with Travis and there was a local competition um done by a couple games athletes Gary and Leah Helmick, they did it. They do have vector games. I did that a couple times. Oh sweet um, and then I've done just some local comps here and there and then by 2018, uh, I I got a pretty bad injury in my elbow and that kind of derailed my competitive like career. Um, that was all in. I wanted to be a. I never thought I'd be a games athlete Cause I got, I started cross at 26. I was a little bit older. I was behind, kind of behind the eight ball as far as, like, I needed more time and uh, but I always had the aspirations of being a regional athlete. And so, uh, 2018, 2017, 2018 are my best years. I was like, I think that's back when you had regionals. Back then I had to be top 20 to get to regionals. I think I missed about like, maybe like 50, 60 spots that year and I was like, oh, this is it. I figured it out. I had to recover now I had to train the right way. I knew all the things I need to do to get there and I sustained a pretty bad elbow injury and so I injury. And so, uh, I tried everything but surgery. I tried, like prp, I tried all kinds of physical therapy, everything you do, but I needed surgery. And so, uh, by the time that happened, it was almost a full year and, um, uh, I got hired to do some, um, some strength and conditioning work at a local high school and then I got hired to do some work for a women's rehab facility for their health and wellness, like nutrition, physical fitness stuff, like that, right. And so I'm like man, if I get this surgery, I'm going to have a difficult time showing people how to do these movements. So, like, I have to make a decision.
Speaker 1:Like now, like, at that point, I had already been seeing a little bit of a decline in my fitness from, you know, maybe being more of like quote unquote an elite athlete. So maybe it was kind of, like, you know, compared like your average person, I was still very fit. And so I decided to take on that work. At the time I started like, uh, you know, I saw, you know, I was with my wife at the time, which is my wife at the time with my girlfriend and we, you know, you know, it's one of those things where, like I had to start to start making some decisions, to be all in, to be an athlete. Like it's so selfish, it really is. I mean like and I'm not even like you hear Frasier talk about like what it takes to be the Cross Games champion, and that's like complete seclusion, like for me, I was not even at that remote that level and I still was like, in some regards, like all that hitting made me go okay, maybe I need to pivot here a little bit.
Speaker 1:And so, obviously, covid hit in 2020, and then my elbow surgery became elective and then so, as it kind of went further, I have bad bone spurs. So it's not like I have, like you know, I have, you know, poor ligament in my elbow and it can't function. It's just I have, I've lost range of motion. So, like overhead squats and squats that things that I need to do to be a competitive athlete I can't do because of that loss of range of motion. I can still do crossfit and be healthy and work out. It's just there's certain moves I can't do so.
Speaker 1:I think when that all happened, it kind of was like, okay, this is my time to either become a better affiliate owner, focus more on, like again, all the business side of things, making sure that my gym is not cleaned every three days but cleaned every single day and things are put in order.
Speaker 1:And that was also when I really kind of went all in on Metcon Rush. As far as, like you know, I'm going to really focus on the competition, so like, I think that injury is kind of what really pushed me to kind of reevaluate a couple of different things in my life and so, yeah, but I mean, I still love the sport. I've been to the games, I've been to semifinals, I've been to regionals like to watch and stuff like that. You know, I just I love, I love it, I love the sport, I love crossfit, I believe in it, um and so, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's cool to see where it's come to, where it is, as far as like being kind of your background backyard brawling type of thing to like is becoming more professionalized even at the even at the quote-unquote local.
Speaker 1:Local, you know, competition level? I don't know that, but would call me. We're definitely not local anymore in the sense that we have athletes coming from all over the country to compete at our competition.
Speaker 2:But we still have a lot. What's the what's the phrase for? For like metcon rush? I'm trying to think about it like metcon Rush, wadapalooza. What do you call a cross like?
Speaker 1:that At the end of the day, I'm definitely trying to create a brand. There's a reason why I don't associate Cross with Metcon Rush because I want to have a stand. I want it to be a standalone brand. I don't personally put myself out there much either. I'm not on Instagram, not talking to the camera much. I, I'm not talking to the camera much. I always want to be a professional baseball player. It's funny. I want to play pro ball. I want to play pro ball.
Speaker 1:I don't think I can handle the celebrity side of it Because I don't like, even like we're having, obviously, a general conversation, it's not a big deal, but I'm not a big fan of it being about me too much. Does that make sense? So I haven't put myself. But, like, I want metcon rush to be a standalone brand I want to have, when you hear the name or you've experienced it, like, there's a certain feeling about it, right, so like I've had some athletes go and do other competitions that it's not metcon rush, you know what I mean, like and so obviously that means a lot to me and a lot of different senses when they say it's not metcon rush and so, um, you know, I know we're not at the level of a waterpalooza. From a size standpoint, I mean obviously bringing a ton of athletes.
Speaker 1:And one of the things I try to talk about with, like other sponsors like, look, do we have a thousand athletes coming to our event? No, but I also don't want a thousand athletes because that completely compromises the quality of the competition. Like, no one can run a great competition with a thousand athletes. You're going to run over and have all kinds of issues. You just can't't. There's no quality control. So, yes, you can go.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I had a thousand athletes and we just ran an event. Or you can say I had 400 athletes and we ran a absolute false event. And to me that's what I'm looking for, right, and I don't do the event to make you know every last dollar because I put almost all of it back into the event. You know there's definitely a mindset with this, with this event, that I'm building it versus just trying to like have it happen and take, take, take. It's like I gotta, I'm going to build this thing and so, yeah, I mean I would love to be put up there at some, at some, you know, point in time, as being one of the top whatever five, as being one of the top whatever five or ten competitions to do.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think I'm just talking to you, I think that mad cod rush is is up in that conversation, you know, like which is from the way people talk about it, you know, and like the experience they get there, I think in this in the states, you know. Yeah, that's one of the one of the things, that one of the events that get on to people's calendars is like what I would call it, you know.
Speaker 1:I appreciate hearing that. I think sometimes, like you know, there's definitely a level of like I don't. I don't want to use like this word, cause I don't, I don't think I fully feel this way, but you sometimes can get like that imposter syndrome. It's like you don't really understand. Understand, I know what we're doing, I know I'm trying to do, but there are definitely times like you don't necessarily fully grasp, maybe kind of what you're doing and again, so it's like to hear feedback that feels awesome, like you want to. Those are the things I want to do, but I also don't want to be the one saying, oh, we have the best, I want, we, I have the best competition.
Speaker 1:Anybody that runs a competition is going to say that about themselves, because if you don't believe in it that's the case I don't know why you'd run. I don't know I'm not saying I'm the best compared to like anything out there, but I feel like I'm doing the best at what I have to offer. So, like whatever I'm running, whatever I'm doing, I believe it's the best that I can possibly give and whatever that is hopefully the outcome is, it ranks up there with whatever else is going on. But I definitely try to stay in my own lane because I have been victim of the whole comparison of the thief of joy.
Speaker 1:I've had that in my life with baseball, I've had that when I competed, and now my goal is to focus solely on what I have going on. It's my event, be the best I can be, and then that's all I care about, because the second my event's over the next one starts and then someone's posting about that. It's easy to go, oh man. It's easy to kind of almost never be satisfied because you're always seeing other people run events, because when I first started Metcon Rush there really wasn't that many cross the competitions and in the last like three or four years it's becoming definitely more saturated. There's a lot more people, right?
Speaker 2:now exploded. Yeah, that's like which is awesome.
Speaker 1:I think that the the more there are, the better it is for everybody, because at that point I guess it's creating more drive for people to compete and want to be in like that competition mode. So I think that's a great thing for everybody. I really do. I also think that competition creates competitions, like if, if I was the only competition, then at some point I'm going to get maybe just comfortable and I'm not going to want to keep elevating my game, and so there are definitely a few competitions that I personally look at that I'm like they feed me, like they get hungry and, you know, crash crucible is one of those. I think JR is an awesome dude. I've talked to him a few times out there. He runs a great competition. I think we have I just think we have similar mindsets where it's, you know, it's about the athletes, it's about the experience, it's about the test, it's about running things the right way. No-transcript. It gets me hungry to keep doing what I need to do to be where I want to be. But I think to kind of take it back to what I want to be listed as when it comes to a local competition, at the end of the day, our local affiliates, our team competition will always be the heart and soul of like metcon rush. Like I might tend to get some better like individuals here and there, but at the end of the day, like that's only a few people coming to compete. The rest are your. You know everyday affiliate members that are trying to, you know, continue to get better and work hard and support the community and like again. That's why when I program for those divisions or I look to those divisions, like I want to make sure they feel as highlighted as as any other athlete that is there, and so that's one of the reasons why in the last couple years, I really built on the whole athlete announcement thing where, like you try to give everybody like a shout out on our instagram page with, uh, that's cool, that's a lot of work, but it's I think it's a really like cool thing and I think it's a it's a necessary thing to do and uh and just and just everything in general, the way we try to run with will will's our media guy, the way he highlights them with all the videos he does and cameron being our mc and you brought in joe this year like they do such a good job of highlighting the athletes and making them feel you know that they're, that maybe they're at their highest, maybe level they'll ever be at as far as like competition and hopefully that they'll walk away, like you know. Like I said, feeling like the experience was, you know, maybe like no other competition they've been at and so you know again.
Speaker 1:So I think it's a combination of wanting to like never like leave the grassroots of, like the crossroad community, but also wanting to provide. You know that competition is very expensive to run. Like the setup is not cheap, the the facility around was not cheap. It's a very expensive competition to run, but I believe in investing in that, into the competition, so that it becomes a, I think again, owning everything I've created, you know, assets, so I I could always sell it, I could keep it at my affiliate, I could sell the competition one day if I want to, and have a full on.
Speaker 1:You have everything you need. You know what I mean. So I think that's been another thing that I've tried to do is just, you know, be smart about you know how we run the event, the budgeting, the purchasing, like all those different things, investing things that we can reuse versus one-time use and stuff like that, but um, but yeah. So I think it's just like I said it's always going to be hopefully just the the focus of the community and, you know, hopefully can bring people from all over but also still touch on those local affiliates that want to be a part of our event that's dope dude, like giving people the championship experience every time they come out.
Speaker 2:You know like I think that's an awesome goal. So what? What's next for you? What are you hoping for?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, I mean, it's, it's. That's a good question. I think I think the coolest thing about like mechon rush for me, separate from my gym, is that it gives me a chance to be a little bit more creative, like the one thing about my affiliate is like I'm kind of in some cases a little bit confined by my space, how many members I have. Like I have huge aspirations for my affiliate as well, but I'm limited in some regards based on again those things, whereas with metcon rush, you know, I'm working with more sponsors, more title sponsors and then going off of previous history of registration so that I can kind of kind of get an idea what we can do numbers.
Speaker 2:why projects? Projective growth yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. For me that kind of creates this opportunity to be more creative and build and grow. And so I think the next thing that we're doing next year is I'm trying to lock down the dates with the college, which they're not always the easiest to work with. So I noticed that I've had some people was texting with brian friend earlier. They do one of your dates when's the competition? Um? Because I want you know it wants to come out next year and I'm just like I'm trying my hardest to get um those locked down.
Speaker 1:But the goal next year is to go three days instead of two um, adding a friday night lights kind of for our individuals to get the weekend started. And then I want to add some new divisions and kind of increase that number of participants by a pretty big margin. We're going to add a complete secondary floor next year. It's going to be functioning all day long, like last year we ran just a one event which was kind of done by mid-morning. So next year we'll run a secondary floor that will run all day long um really allow for um again, bigger numbers and the event to kind of run um effortlessly. Um that also requires more help. So we're working with afj, even more more so than we were last year um and then um, the company I'm talking to right now about equipment can help a little bit again with being more dynamic with our programming. So adding some really cool new elements, new tech, um, working with some other um, um, you know some other ideas for maybe some I don't give too much away but some outdoor stuff that we might be doing. The college has a really cool campus, so like getting more, just trying to use more of our resources. So, yeah, so I think year 10, the goal is I want to again create growth more athletes, more payout, larger payout and then again expand on the programming, add more competition floors. So things are happening more at once to get the athletes either A either earlier, but also not sitting around too long. One of the things we heard this year is that there might have been a little more of a gap in between some of the workouts on Sunday because we had our Masters. We had our Masters 45 plus our Masters 35, 35 to 40, our scale division and our elites all going that day. So like having that many division, that many athletes we're still done by 5 30, but there might have been a little bit of a larger gap of wait time that maybe our masters would have liked to had less of that, so, um. So the goal this year is to kind of create a little bit more of a more, um, consistent gap in times of rest periods, so that it's, you know, again, everybody's kind of happy with that. So and then you know, that's kind of where I'm at with it, again, not trying to reinvent the wheel too much.
Speaker 1:Have a great year 10, hopefully increase more of the media coverage. Get, you know, as I say media coverage, I mean just, you know, get more eyes on the competition. And I think having Brian there next year, being able to kind of live stream the event, would be really cool for us. We haven't had a chance to have a nice live stream event in the last couple of years, so having him come out, do a live stream of the of the event will be huge for, again, bringing more eyes in on the game day. And you know Hagerston doesn the game day and, um, you know heggestown doesn't have too many options. As far as like venues, I think hcc is a really unique venue, um, because it provides a lot of space. Um, you know, great, great bathroom opportunity because sometimes you go to some competitions don't have a lot of bathrooms for people to kind of uh you know, use or whatever.
Speaker 1:So, like you know, obviously it's a big deal for those are all the small things right there, right so having the adequate things we need bathroom space, parking space, um, it's air conditioned, it's, um, you know, a large venue is great, but you know I have to deal with is there something basketball going on? Is there a volleyball going on? Is there a track thing happening with, like you know, the community? So, like that's one of the issues with finding time to rent the space is like all those things I have to work around. And so I would love, I would love to see Hagerstown create and I would do it myself if I had the backing but created a better, better venue for me to kind of utilize.
Speaker 1:I don't want to leave Hagerstown because of a. It's my hometown, be all my equipment's here, so leaving and having to transport that stuff would be very difficult. Most of my volunteers are my gym members. Uh, we do get a decent amount of volunteers that are, um, you know, not local, which is great, but again, I'm leaning a little bit more on my gym members, so leaving this area would make all that a little bit harder. So I think, uh, they are building a brand new sports flex, because it has indoor turf fields, same kind of court system. It's not done yet. It'll be done in January. I think I'm going to try to check that out and see what's going on, maybe for 2026. But yeah, so 2025 will be at HCC again Hagerstown Community College and I guess I'd try to again. Just keep keep upping thepping the quality of the competition and keep pumping out great experience, getting increased prize purses and cool workouts, and have a great time. I think the experience will bring people back.
Speaker 2:That's sick dude. I mean congrats on just making it to year 10. Not a lot of people out there even do 10 years of any one project. That'll be really cool to put on.
Speaker 1:It's hard to believe. It's cool, man. I think the first couple years I kept doing it because I felt people like, are you gonna do that again next year? You do that competition again? I'm like I guess I'll do it. I don't know. I was like first year like I'm not sure, because when I first started it wasn't a competition. My, it was like a tough. It was like my goal was to create this Tough Mudder version of a competition.
Speaker 1:I was out on a football field and you did a little section here, then you moved up. You did a section here, you moved up. Then you might have ran on the track and did a section and you were done. It might have been a 30, 40-minute workout and then you were done for the day. That was it.
Speaker 1:I thought, oh, this will be cool. We'll really focus on the scale of athletes and people. They like your scale, athletes and people, just the everyday person to come do this. And we did that year one, we did that year two and then year three, it rained and I had to pivot and bring it inside my gym and the feedback was oh man, I like it being inside, because it felt more like energy. It felt more like a competition. So then I guess the feedback was okay do you guys want to be a competition or do you want to be like the race a race? And so at that point it was a lot of the same people doing it every year and so like I was able to get that feedback pretty easily and people like, make it a competition.
Speaker 1:Yeah they only have like a vision for this or whatever, because, like other people were doing that already, I'm like everyone do what everybody else is doing, and so yeah, yeah and so at the time one of the cool things we're doing is every competition or or Metcon Rush, we ran. We work with local charities, so we helped with an adoption, we helped with um, the women's rehab facility.
Speaker 1:We helped with um, like, um, our local like, um, uh, they, they house like people with like autism and different things like that find them and then I worked with the Boys and Girls Club and we would raise money and give them a check and then run our event, which is pretty cool, and so that was also kind of a driving factor to run the event. So, like, at first I wasn't really all in and then, I think, in 2018, when I got hurt, that's what kind of also kind of pivoted me to like you know. So this is being some random competition I do once a year. I kind of don't even talk about it or even post about it a couple weeks leading up to it. I'm going to try to really build this brand up and so I think, from a person who competed at competitions, I took all the things that I would like to see as an athlete, and that's how I kind of made up Metcon Rush moving forward.
Speaker 1:I want to see it was me. I want to be on the grand stage, I want to have a cool rig, I want to see the rubber flooring with this and the third and the grandstands and the and all the different things and so like. For me, I it became. What do I want to see? Do I want to be there all day long? No, I don't want to be there all day long. I want to. You know, do I want to see that like that. So like that also kind of was a way of me taking my competitiveness, that I had an athlete, and then turning into a competitive competitiveness as an outlet, yeah I was a director of this, this competition.
Speaker 1:So now that, even though I'm not competitive anymore across but I do it for fun, I do it to stay healthy I have a great time. My mindset has changed. When I can, like I go in today at 3 30 to work out like my, my brother, a couple friends, I don't care if I win, my goal is just to like work out, push myself hard and have fun, whereas back in the days, like if I don't beat everybody, like I'm worthless. Basically you know what I mean like I put a lot of life on that, right.
Speaker 1:So, but now, with mek on rust, like okay, let me figure out how to like up the ante here, who you know, how can I develop more relationships with people that can help build this? You know this brand. Or how can I take a step up today or how you know? So those are all things like that. I've now transitioned to that and that's my competitive focuses. Like you know, my competition, my gym and so on and so forth. So like, uh, it's all kind of all that's kind of funneled in now and kind of led me to where I am now as far as that circle yeah yeah that's awesome, bro, I feel you man like.
Speaker 2:So I'm trying to find a venue right now sportsplex to put on a weightlifting meet, um, so that I don't do it in the affiliate the first. You know, a few months when I'm doing it there and, uh, trying to coordinate times and dates with them is uh, because I mean, you know, crossing the weightlift is not super big to the outside world. So explaining to them, hey, I want this date and that you're not just some fricking idiot who's just going to, you know, have a terrible event there, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Like what are you going to do here? I'm like I promise I'm not going to break anything, like I, you know. So that first they're like we're, they're pretty weirded. Why I said yes is because I was going to pay them a decent amount of money to be there and so how years?
Speaker 2:yeah, I've been there since 2020.
Speaker 1:So this will be 20, 21, 22, like 50 or 60 or whatever. And, uh, now they know what I'm doing, so it's like it's not hard for me to explain, like, hey, this is what I'm doing, I'm not going to hurt anything, I'm going to pay you the amount of money that you asked me to pay you. I'm reliable. Um, it's like that. That's all kind of been established. It's like you said like have it?
Speaker 2:have an insurance too? Like the dude asked that and when he had, when I said yes, he was like then he kept going and then he had some more answers for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't worry, you're not gonna be liable for anything to happen here like yeah so yeah, I totally get it.
Speaker 2:It's definitely interesting, like to kind of explain to people have no idea what you're talking about, like, hey, I'm gonna do this and I promise it's gonna work, like it's not gonna be right yeah, the other thing that was good for me is is you saw they host, uh, like one of the ao series around my area that I live like like once every like two years, so they just did it. So, like some of the venues are used to that kind of thing, so that helped me out a little bit. I reached out to the casino to see if they had like a smaller hall right, and they're like, oh the the big, the smallest hall we have is 13 000 and I'm like, oh my god, I don't know if I need, I don't know if I need that you know, year one for a weightlifting beat, you know gotta find a happy medium somewhere yeah, yeah, man, but uh, thanks for coming on, bro.
Speaker 2:You know actually what I want to say. Uh, what I want to say a story about bathrooms. So so I hosted CrossFit event at Affiliate. I was at like four years ago like one of my other jobs, and first thing I ever put on it was a same-sex competition, guys and girls, and I didn't get any porta-potties for this one. There was 90-something athletes there, right, and we had the gym, had four bathrooms, like they had a lot of bathrooms around the building, but still, you know everyone's nervous pooping right before they go peeing.
Speaker 2:All throughout the whole first event, all throughout workout one. If you make it through that you'll be a little bit better. But dude, the piping that's going through the ceiling. I started seeing leaking in the back of the gym. I had to go cone that area off, put like mats up, so the people didn't see this stuff. So, like only me and a few other people knew. But it was still like oh my God, who could have thought that this disaster would happen? You know, but that taught me a lot about all the unforeseen things that go in this stuff.
Speaker 1:You know messing up is the best thing ever because, like, especially like if you do it like early on, because you learn so much from it that like you can, you learn so much from it that like you can again like if I did it. This is my 10th year doing it. Like I said, only like a third of it, or less than a third of it, has been like super, super successful. The rest of it's all learning how to like, mess it up.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean and make it better and then eventually, like you can, kind of okay, I know what I'm doing now. So there's like a benefit in some regards of making mistakes and then learning how to like, adjust and so like you know, yeah, preventative right. So it's like that's a part of anything in life your affiliate, your, you know your marriage, your friendships, like, just like you know Any project You're like yeah, I got to figure out how to like not do this again.
Speaker 2:Right One time freaking. It might have even been the same event. It might have been another one One time. One of the vendors is standing right in front of one of the light switches and doesn't know it because I just put them there. They backed up, hit the light switch right in the middle of the one. In the workouts Lights go off in the building At least it was warehouse gym so garage doors were open so light was coming in there. It didn't go instant darkness, but I was just like what could have happened.
Speaker 1:light was coming in there, so it didn't go instant darkness, but I was just like what could have happened and for a good you know, you go check like uh wasn't me. People moved over like it wasn't me, right that's fine.
Speaker 2:I was like all right, so this is the good space for a vendor. Got it, got it. You guys are all going to be outside next year. You don't deal with it for everybody. Yeah, that's hilarious. Well, bro, again, this has been a great conversation. Thanks for coming on, man. Uh, do you have anything else for the? At the end of the episode I know you told us a little bit about next year, about as much as you can reveal. You have anything else to say to the people?
Speaker 1:um, well, first of all, I just want to just encourage you, as a new gym owner, to crush it. You know you're doing an awesome thing, man, like it's. You know it's funny, like I've seen people say like oh it's. You know there's crops are gonna make it is gonna make it. And like I try to explain to people as best I can like, look, man, like the affiliates are across it, like we are across it, my gym is its own, like ecosystem, right, they don't know what's going on for the most part, like outside of my gym, right. So, like, as long as I'm, we're doing the right thing, we're gonna, we're gonna be here for years to come. So, like again, just encouraging you as a new affiliate under the name is to crush it, enjoy it, keep changing lives. It's an awesome, awesome thing. It's cool to see another affiliate pop up.
Speaker 1:As far as like MedCon Rush, you know, like I said, just, the goal every year is to give people an amazing experience and that'll always be my focus and I just, you know, I hope that people enjoy it. They want to come back next year. The dates are tentatively in July, so it'll be July again. That's the goal, that's the dates I'm looking at right now for college. I don't want to necessarily say the days. I'm not 100% sure of the days yet, but I have a date that I gave them. Hopefully they're going to work with me on that.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, I appreciate the support. Like it's like any life man, like, uh, you know, I can tell my members like the gym is theirs, like I open the doors up and you guys show up without you, like this place doesn't exist, right. So without that I'm gonna do metcon rush. Metcon rush is nothing. Like I can. I like my mom, my wife, said what's your event? I'm like I might get it all ready to go, but the week leading up to it I need everybody's help. I need your help, my brother's help. I need all the gym members up, I need the volunteers up, I need the athletes to show up.
Speaker 1:Like so it might be a little bit of like a one man show for a little while as far as getting going, but I need so much to happen for the event to take place, and so I'm so grateful the athletes that have kept this thing going and I hope that they continue to want to be a part of it. And you know my as always, I'll try to deliver the best I possibly can, but now I'm just looking forward to another, hopefully a good year. We do, we do do. Uh. I am newer to an online competition. Last year we did mechon rush online community challenge, which is like my goal to kind of keep the season or the event kind of in the forefront, so it's not like it's here in july.
Speaker 1:Well, actually, you know, obviously you have, like you know, you're built up to registration, you have the event and it's kind of over with right. So like, yeah, I started an online competition in december of last year. We paid out the divisions from cash. You ever got 200 bucks for, like, winning their division and it was just mostly meant to be to get everybody kind of excited for the open. So, like you go, not an online qualifier, you just do. It's like you have, uh, four workouts to do in a week time span blindly to board, you, post your workouts, uh, using the wad proof app, and then the winners of the division got paid like 200 bucks and um, it was again.
Speaker 1:It was like I heard about over the point 25 to sign up or whatever it was, and again the goal was just to kind of create an extension of metcon rush to the affiliates and then again hopefully encourage the athletes and his affiliates to get ready for the Open. And also, I feel like December is a little bit of a dead time just to give you guys something to kind of do as far as you know, another competition or whatever. That's just for fun. But yeah, so we'll do Metcon Rush online community challenge in December again this year, and then we'll get beefed up for Metcon Rush, you know, year 10, hopefully, uh, again in july, man. So I'm pretty pumped for it and, like I said, I just you know I got tunnel vision when it comes and just hopefully just being being the best I can be.
Speaker 2:So that's sick dude. I love it, man. Well, dogs out there, be on the lookout for the online version, throw it out, prepare yourself for the open and then prepare yourself for registration next year, hopefully around July. We're going to get out of here now. Peace, appreciate it, brother.