Warning: Detour Ahead!
It was summer of 2008. My buddy and I landed a job through a friend of a friend, installing new furniture and fixtures in banks. In California! It was a pretty cool gig, driving around CA in the summer. We had no idea what we were doing, but we figured it out.
One particular week, our job duties took us from San Jose, all the way up to Arcata, CA in the northernmost corner of the state. Just a quick 6 hour jaunt by freeway, in the beautiful Redwood forests.
The first half of the trip went smoothly. Then we got hit with a major roadblock, literally. Due to wildfires, the freeway we needed was closed, still hundreds of miles from our destination. We were in a relatively remote part of the state, and road options were extremely limited. With the wildfires, we had no idea what to do next.
Since it was 2008 and neither of us had a smart phone, we just had one hope. We consulted the bulky plastic Garmin GPS (remember those?) that came with the rental car, and set off again, trusting the computer turn by turn to get us where we told it to go.
The second half of the journey, which we had expected to take 3 hours, turned into 6 hours driving through the mountains, on narrow two lane roads that were really missing half a lane, with no guardrails. We had to switch drivers about every half hour to give our adrenaline a chance to go back down, and pry our hands off the steering wheel. Our commute to work turned into an extreme sport.
Eventually, we finally made it to Arcata; sweating, nerves frayed, thankful to be on “normal” roads again. It took us way longer than we thought, and the road was more perilous than we had ever imagined. Thankfully our GPS got us there safe and sound, and we managed to avoid careening off a cliff in the process. I don’t know what we would have done without the step by step guidance from the Garmin unit.
Your fitness journey sometimes ends up feeling like this crazy wildfire detour drive. We expect the freeway — a simple, linear progression where we’re always making progress — and instead we encounter huge roadblocks. Every time this happens, it can be a real doozy to overcome, especially if you’re going it alone.
That’s the single biggest benefit of going on your fitness journey with a guide. Our coaches can be your GPS when your expected route is no longer an option. We’ll keep you moving forward, no matter what obstacles you face. Illness, injury, job changes, new additions to the family — there’s nothing we can’t figure out, together. You keep showing up, and we keep showing you the next step to better health.
