LoLo Turns One [CrossFit Victoria BC]

It was a hell of a party and an amazing experience to commemorate and reflect on all of the moments of community bonding and growth over these past short 12 crazy months. While putting the “year in review” slideshow together, I realized just how much fun we’ve had in the past year. In chronological order:

LoLo Year in Review video:

Renovations Part 1

We took over the space in October and got straight into renovating this beautiful space!

“We’ve been hard at work here for the past few weeks creating CrossFit LoLo! We have been absolutely blown away by all of the volunteer hours brought to us by our community and beyond! Many of our current members have put in 30+ hours of their own time – painting, cleaning, pressure washing, putting equipment together and caffeinating the team!”

Pre-Launch Membership Sale

So many people took advantage of our Pre-Launch membership option. There was only 55 of these limited memberships up for grabs! There is still quite a few members that are still with us today, enjoying this whole adventure with us.

Halloween Open House

October 31st, 2019 was “our first day open to the public and honestly we had no idea what to expect but we knew it was going to be a good time. The place was packed all day! Halloween turned out to be the perfect day to open because it brought a whole new level of fun with some very committed costumes and workouts!”

Engagement Party

Just days after opening our doors, owners Adam and Kelsey hosted their engagement party for their family and friends to celebrate their love and commitment to themselves and this gym.

“6 months ago we announced our engagement party date with the intention of hosting it at our new gym. We had already been looking for several months without success for the right location and had no idea if we were going to secure a spot in time before we told our east coast family to book their flights. We told everyone we would be hosting our engagement party in our new gym – without any idea if that was going to be able to happen! That’s manifestation.”

Christmas Party

For Christmas we hosted a fitness party and fundraiser. The members could donate to pick a movement for a coach of their choice to construct a workout.

Ugly sweaters were encouraged for the Christmas themed workout, with a sleigh-ride rowing train.

“All proceeds are going towards local children’s hospital affiliate Jeneece Place. The evening wrapped up with an elf dunk tank! Balls were $5 for one or three for $10 and everyone enjoyed some additional payback to their trainers! Ultimately, we raised $1025!”

The 2019 CrossFit Open

Our first open was a hugs success! Many people who participated had never done CrossFit before, let alone the open. Across the the 5 weeks our members surprised us and themselves with how hard they worked and the achievements they made. The best thing about CrossFit is the community. The community really comes out to help cheer each other on and support everyone through their workout.

“Throughout the Open, members were encouraged to fill out an online survey nominating a fellow athlete for the “Spirit of the Open Award”, as well as a LoLo team member, both are acknowledgements for inspiring or impacting others during the Open. Reading the nominations were so rewarding for us! So many nice things were said that we decided to share the love by writing them on the back of photos of each members taken during the open, and provided as a take-home souvenir as a testament to their part in our community and to their bravery and success in the Open!”

This award went to Jon Evans!

Easter Egg Hunt

For Easter we hosted a free family event with a workout and easter egg hunt!

“The Easter egg hunt was for all ages and did not include candy for kids. Instead, eggs contain stickers which they traded in for toys. The kids were so polite and excited! For adults, we hid golden eggs containing prizes such as: a month unlimited membership at LoLo (valued at $210, new members only) as well as a Personal Training session (valued at $85), supplement and merchandise giveaways! The adults were more excited and competitive than the kids! Just goes to show that we don’t really grow up :). Each participant found 3 free drop-ins during the hunt :).”

This was such a great way to start introducing CrossFit into the wider community and start encouraging children to try it out.

Festivus Games 1

In April we had a handful of members compete at the Festivus Games held at Peninsula CrossFit.

“It was really exciting to see some of our members throw down on the competition floor.  As a coach, I was super proud to see our athletes work hard, and support each other. We had at least one team competing in each division.  In the Novice Division, we had “Team Awesome” (Baylea and Jory), in the Intermediate Division we had “Ripped for your Pleasure” (Bridie and Andrew) and “Team LoLo” (Paul and Kelsey), and in the Masters Division we had “Masters of the WODiverse” (Karen and Jon).  Not to mention, we had quite a cheering squad out from LoLo to support our teams!”

Baylea and Jory ended up taking out the competition with a first place win!

6 Month Anniversary Challenge 

At our 6 month mark we encouraged our members to get in the gym more and complete our challenge. We had a score card that gave the members options of tasks or exercises they could complete to get points across the month.

“Hard work pays off, and it particularly showed for our 3 winners of our 6 month anniversary challenge. Congrats to Tiffany coming in smooth like peanut butter and winning 3rd place of a year supply of Fatso Peanut Butter, Viki jetting past into 2nd for a Fuel supplement package, and our grand prize winner Brittany Goud smashing first place out of the park and winning herself a LoLo prize pack valued at $800!”

Renovations Part 2 (Showers)

In June we also commenced renovations on our bathrooms. We added in a second washroom and two showers for our members.

“For the next four weeks (all should be completed by the end of July), the area will be sectioned off with a temporary wall for your safety,  to ensure air quality, and the least amount of disruption to your workout. You will have already noticed the area is being prepared for the reno and the change rooms have been removed.  If you need to change please come in plenty of time to rotate with others with our one current bathroom.”

We were awfully ambitious as to how long these renovations would take. Thank-you to our members for their patience. The renovations are now complete and fully functioning for our members.

Pre-CanWest Lift Off

We had such a great turn out for this practice event for the CrossFit community on the island competing at CanWest Games.

“This event was created to give our members (and the wider Victoria CrossFit community) an opportunity to practice their Olympic Lifting. This was in preparation for the 2019 CanWestGames. This event can be nerve racking for some, especially those who may be competing for the first time.”

Summer BBQ/Adam’s Birthday

“On July 20th, 2019 our first Annual LoLo Summer BBQ was a huge success! The BBQ was put in place to acknowledge our members for all their ongoing and constant hard work and support, it also happened to fall on owner, Adam’s birthday to which we celebrated to the fullest.

What a better way to start the celebrations than with a workout of course!”

At this time we also celebrated hitting over 100 members!

CanWest Games

The CanWest Games were held at the end of July in Coquitlam, BC. What a successful event that brought together so many members of our community. We had a great turn out with quite a few people travelling from the island just to support for the day!

“CrossFit LoLo had 15 athletes compete throughout the weekend. Coach Adrian Toderan placed 22nd overall after a hard fight and a really solid performance across the board in the Elite Men’s Division. Huge Congratulations to team “LoLo PowerPuff Girls” finished up the weekend with a 1st place finish in the Scaled Women’s Trio! Team “Squat Goals” coming in at 12th. “The Notorious W.O.D” came in at 32nd in the Intermediate Women’s Trio. “The WOD Squad” finished in 17th in the Scaled Men’s Trio. For a lot of these athletes, it was their first time competing in a CrossFit Competition. As a result, they are much more confident in their competitive skills and are ready to tackle the next competition!”

Festivus Games 2

In September, our members competed at another Festivus Games. This games was held at CrossFit LifeTree.

“In the Novice Division, we had teams “We Got It Up” (coach Mike Burrus and Jon Evans) as well as “The Tall Guys” (Matt Drake and Evan Moncrieff), in the Intermediate Division we had “Kettle Bellas” (Joycee Wong and Liz Carter) and “Chalk Dirty to Me” (Viktória Csánicz and Shannon Naylor) and “Don’t Be Crosshitty” (Bridie Erica and Jen Lebarge). Not to mention, we had quite a cheering squad out from LoLo to support our teams! Andrea, Paul, Rya, Karen, Allyssa, Amanda + Aurora Moncrieff, Matt’s wife, Mary and of course, coach Adam. ”

Mike and Jon ended up winning their division!

The 2020 CrossFit Open

We are currently partway through the second open for the year. Due to the change of structure of The CrossFit Games, this is the first and only year that we will see the open twice. We have over 60 members signed up for the open this time around and everyone is loving it! Pushing themselves to limits they wouldn’t ordinarily in class and hitting some really great personal records around the new movements they are learning.

Our coaches are super impressed with the level of dedication our members are putting into their training! We can’t wait to see how far they have come the next time the open rolls around.

Anniversary Party

365. This past weekend we celebrated our 1 year anniversary with an EPIC party. The event was also a fundraiser for KidSport. We raised close to $5000 with all proceeds from the ticket sales and silent auction going towards KidSport. We were blown away with the support from our members and can’t wait to see this community flourish even more! Thank-you to everyone who made this event so great!

Photos by Kgoodphoto.

WOW! What a year! We can’t wait to see what else we can achieve in the next year. Thank-you for all your continued support.