To be honest my Friday afternoon “off” did not go so well.

After working 4:30am to 11:10am I headed home for breakfast but before I could get there I received word that the rig expansion parts we’d ordered from Gorila August 13th (that they’d said would ship around October 8th which we’d planned to install October 24th but which actually shipped October 28th) had been dumped at Olympic Village.

The delivery driver had left me a voice message saying that since no one was answering he’d just left everything outside and driven off.  Why that address?  Who knows.  Last time they shipped the rig to Victoria despite having our correct address on file.  Without a vehicle capable of hauling those long bars and with a critical 1:00pm business meeting looming, I tried to contact the shipping company except they only have phone or electronic tracking which all report that our item was successfully delivered.  There was no live customer support options.  So I contacted someone in their IT department who very helpfully passed me on to people who seemed disinclined to help since it was obviously Gorila’s fault for giving them the incorrect address and not the responsibility of the freight company.

I had to – as Sandman calls it – turn to the dark side pointing out that no shipper I’ve ever dealt with drops $1500 of equipment outside unattended and drives off.  I also made it clear that if items were missing from our $1500 order when I arrived there at 6pm I would make sure that both the shipper (Canpar) and Gorila would be held liable for our loss.

While I was on the phone with the shipper I also wrote a scathing Google review of Gorila detailing the shipping SNAFU’s we’ve run into with them since our first rig order in 2018.  Within minutes the owner who has been ever so elusive throughout all our requests of customer support and shipping updates – was in contact with me by text and by email begging me to reconsider my review and promising to rectify the situation.

My afternoon was thus spent back and forth between Gorila, Canpar and Freightways often with 2 or 3 of them on the phone at the same time.  I promise you this is not how I wanted to spend my afternoon.  It was hours before I even got my bathroom break and managed to throw in a laundry load.  I hadn’t even touched my planned work yet.  But shortly before the 4pm class Shades finally confirmed delivery of our equipment.  and that sometimes, is how my days “off” get spent.

But frustrated and furious as I was throughout the ordeal I also felt  a profound sense of gratitude.  As many of you heard yesterday, destination CrossFit gym, Kelly Starrett’s San Francisco CrossFit will be closing for good November 15th after 15 years as an affiliate.  When the first COVID shut downs hit them they had a community of 700+ active members.  It was news both sobering and heart breaking and I am struck with the survivor’s guilty sense of relief that that was not Empower.  And an even guiltier exultation that we are still here.

When we opened our tiny shoebox-sized space on Dunbar we were told by industry experts that we could not survive this neighbourhood’s obscene rents.  And it hasn’t been an easy road.  2020 has been particularly damaging and yet, thanks to you, our doors remain open, our members still standing with us and I feel a growing sense of optimism as our Empower team learns to adapt to and navigate the new business reality.

Zoom WODs, Virtual Coaching, masks, class caps, gym reconfiguration, like a toddler taking our first few faltering steps we’re learning how to steady ourselves in this unsteady world and as we get stronger I feel we will soon be sprinting forward again.  Sure, we may fall on our faces a few times along the way but we’ve proven capable of picking ourselves up again.

As annoying as this afternoon was, I felt so thankful to be dealing with the problem, of “where’s the equipment I ordered and paid for” because that’s the kind of problem that only gyms that survive this pandemic can hope to have.

Saturday Make Up Day
We will offer an outdoor option for waitlisted members who cannot fit safely into the gym.

1) 15 min AMRAP
5 Strict T2B
10 GHD Sit Ups
15 Hip Extensions

2) Clean & Jerk
5-5-3-3-3-1-1-1-1

3) Cindy

20 Minute AMRAP:
5 Pullups
10 Pushups
15 Squats

4) Mary

AMRAP 20 Minutes:
5 Handstand Push-ups
10 1-legged Squats
15 Pull-ups

5) Hero WOD Griff
2 Rounds:
800m Run
400m Backward Run

6) Empower Reset #19
1 min face down breathing
30/30 sec head nods/rotations on belly and elbows

1 min upper body roll1 min lower body roll

3 mins
10 heads-up cross touch dead bugs
10 head pressed down windshield wipers

3 mins
10 cross touch plank bird dogs
10 judo push up rocks

5 mins
Max Hanging Hold
Max Leopard Crawl

10 Full Body Rock
400m KB Suitcase carry @1/1.5 pood