On June 09th and 10th, the CrossFit and Endurance communities came together to celebrate a friend and loved one, Bruce Gordon. Bruce LOVED fitness and his communities. We thought this was a great way to honour the man who touched so many people.
I think that the one thing that I heard over and over about this event is that it was "super fun"! It was an opportunity for athletes to challenge themselves and try new things. I think that there was a lot of 'rock, paper, scissors' to decide who the swimmer would be. As it turns out, swimming is hard;). The feeling around this event was not one of competition, but one of celebration. I thought it was really cool to see the athletes that had a vest for the last work-out wear it. It is clearly not an advantage over not wearing one, but as it was "The Bruce", they chose to push a little harder. In most competitions, if a team ended up being short an athlete at any time, they would usually withdraw. This was not the case on the weekend. Teams would compete down an athlete or athletes would step in at the last minute, but no one gave up. It truly warmed my heart to see everyone band together and do what we all love to do.
These events take a lot of planning and expense and we couldn't execute a weekend like this without the help of our amazing volunteers and our generous sponsors. There are too many volunteers to name, but from all of us - THANK YOU!! We had 5 Platinum Sponsors, Randy Sabo with Hallmark Realty, Saskatoon Police Association, Lesia Design and Digital, Cuelenaere LLP, Varsity Dental and John Gordon. Our Gold Sponsors were Fibrenew and Nutrien and our Silver Sponsors were Voce Developments, SaskPro CrossFit, and Motif Marketing. Our athletes were kept fuelled by Muscle Milk. We also had generous sponsors for raffle prizes from the Saskatoon Blades, Twyla Chupa Tupperware, the Theissan's with dinner and movie gift certificates as well as Lesia Design and Digital. To all those involved - THANK YOU!!
Not only did we have a blast all weekend, the Saskatchewan Fitness Community raised over $12,000.00 for pancreatic cancer research and the team here at the Saskatoon Cancer Centre.
Finally, thank you to Chris, James and Jill for being a part of our communities. You were there competing, judging and supporting all weekend long. That couldn't have been easy and I know that another favourite thing was having Chris smiling and giving high 5's as athletes crossed the finish line at the triathlon. I think Bruce would have been smiling down on us this weekend. You guys are amazing.
"The purpose of life is to live, learn, love, to contribute in some way to making things better. Strive to achieve your greatest self, to live out your purpose, to be honourable, to be compassionate, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience".
We are looking forward to next year and making this festival bigger and better. Much love to you all.
Rebecca & Jason