Take a second and think back to your first day at Renew. Hopefully, you were introduced to the class, asked questions about yourself, your job, your hobbies, and maybe a few things in between. In the days following, you were probably followed up with a phone call and a few emails from yours truly. We want to know how class went, tell you about regular rhythms at the gym, and probably friend you Facebook before ever actually meeting you (because I’m trying to add you to the Facebook page….just accept my request, okay?).

Why do we do all of this? Y’all… part of my job is literally to make you feel welcomed into the community, nay, family that is CrossFit Renew. I don’t care how much experience you have, walking into a large group of fit strangers throwing around weight can be incredibly intimidating. Even if it’s just an email or phone call, we want you to feel like you have some kind of friendship with at least one human in the gym. And it’s extra cool if that one human is someone on the staff, right??

If you’ve passed that point of feeling new with us, that’s great! I hope you’ve made some solid friendships in your regular classes. But more than that, our goal is to have all of us be friends outside of that one hour class, a few times a week. There’s so much more to every person at Renew than we can see during a workout. Yes, the vulnerability of being exhausted and struggling together is very bonding, but our goal is to create an environment where y’all want to get Juiceland after class together. Or invite us to your birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving, dinner, or other celebratory events! We want to help you move from an apartment to your first home, and we want to be there to watch your kids and walk your dogs. Building those friendships inside the gym translates to friendships outside of the gym and that translates to sharing life with each other.

And that’s what we want. We want to know about your big accomplishments so we can celebrate with you, heck yes! But we also want to know about hard things in your life so we can help or even just share in your grief. It’s important, y’all. I’ve sobbed like a child on more than one occasion in the middle of the gym to a coach or member that genuinely cares about me. Those are the times where I was most grateful for this place and the people in it.  

Being an adult is hard sometimes, but it’s less hard with quality people to share it with. If you do CrossFit, you either love it, or you’re a psycho who puts yourself through it for no reason. When Renew was founded, the goal was to combine an activity that we love, with the people that we love.

If you’re new, you probably can’t relate to this very much yet, but it is our hope that you will be able to very soon.

Also, if you’ve only gotten a call or emails from me up to this point, hello, I’m McKenzie, and I’m really excited to meet you.