Sixteen CrossFit Fort Vancouver members run a marathon using CrossFit to prepare

Adam Neiffer always tells his members that the goal of CrossFit is not to be good at CrossFit.

• I always encourage people to exercise outside of the gym, said Neiffer, the 14-year-old owner of CrossFit Fort Vancouver in Vancouver, WA, who also coaches two-time CrossFit Games champion Justin Medeiros.

This year, his board caught fire, he explained, when three dozen of its members decided to run a half or full marathon.

The result: Over the past three weeks, 16 CrossFit Fort Vancouver members, including Neiffer, have completed a full marathon, some have done the Portland Marathon, some have done the Chicago Marathon, and others have done a local marathon in Vancouver, WA. Another 20 ran a half marathon.

• Its fastest athlete completed the marathon in three hours and 17 minutes, while Neiffer himself finished in three hours and 24 minutes.

One big thing: While some who ran the marathon took it a little more seriously and followed a structured running program, most trained for the half or full marathon simply by continuing to follow the group class schedule at CrossFit Fort Vancouver and adding some additional runs two or three days a week.

• We don’t really follow a structured program In terms of a running training program, most people continued to go to the gym, work hard, and run a few times a week. Many of them ran together, Neiffer said, adding that one of his members just added a run to the end of his day’s workout three days a week.

To achieve his three-hour, 24-minute marathon, Neiffer did the same as his members: I did the daily CrossFit Fort Vancouver workout three to five days a week, and ran or biked two or three times a week, he said. .

Ultimately, what Neiffer thinks this shows is what he’s known for some time: CrossFit works, and it works to produce well-rounded fitness that prepares us for a wide variety of tasks, he explained. In some cases, that means helping your grandmother move a refrigerator. In other cases, it means going for a long walk, and in this case, it means running 26 miles.

The big picture: CrossFit Fort Vancouver’s recent effort is the perfect example of what CrossFit is all about: using the fitness we gain from CrossFit in our everyday lives.

• I think it’s very important for CrossFitters to use their fitness in applications outside of the gym. because it’s easy to get into a routine where all you do is CrossFit, but it’s important to get out of your comfort zone. CrossFit is amazing and amazing at developing well-rounded fitness, but it wasn’t created, so it’s all you do, Neiffer said. One of our goals is (for our members) to have a physical shape that allows them to say yes to life. We don’t want their fitness to limit what they are able to do outside of the gym.

He added: CrossFit puts us in a position where we can say yes to anything.