Throwback to CrossFit North’s “Suffer on Saturday”

This is a photo that recently surface on the internet and brought back a lot of memories for me.  This is CrossFit North in Seattle’s Magnuson Park during a “Suffer on Saturday” event in April 2005.  I did not take the picture, credit for that has to go to Nancy Meenen.

This photo is significant to me for several reasons:

• CrossFit North was the world’s first CrossFit affiliate, the vanguard of a fitness movement that has now impacted the entire world.
• Suffer on Saturday was the first in-person competitive event for CrossFitters, giving birth to a new sport.
• This room was where I attended Mike Burgener’s Olympic Weightlifting workshop, which was the first of the CrossFit Specialist Seminars.
• This is where Dave Werner, Nick Nibbler, Nancy Meenen, Scott Takenaga, Michael Street, Carrie Klumpar, and Allison King taught me how to eat better, how to lift properly, how to think more clearly, and so many other things.
• This is where I learned to do my first muscle-up (we did not kip).
• This is where I smoked everyone on Helen in 6 1/2 minutes, probably holding a world record at the time (when no one cared about such things).
• This is where I jumped onto a 48″ pommel horse, my personal best jump height.
• This is where I used to sweep and mop the floors to pay for my membership dues.

You can see from the photo that early CrossFit brought together a lot of different types of people, that CrossFit gyms were nothing like regular gyms, and that it was something for all ages.

A lot has changed in the past 15 years, but some things still haven’t.  I’m just happy that I will always get to say, “I remember when CrossFit was cool.”