John had alway dreamed of living in the wilderness and having his own expansive playground. He also wanted to be self sufficient and away from the bustle of the city. At Grit Farm Fitness, John is realizing this dream and living many more.
Allison spent her young adult life living and working with horses at Spruce Meadows. After moving onto athletics in college, she ended up leaving her career with horses to pursue athletics full-time. Her passion for health and well-being also included backyard chickens, bee-keeping and an organic gardening. She played with these on a small scale in her Vancouver home. Grit Farm Fitness made everything real on a grand scale.
Ama … “Dad, when we got Cinders, mom and I dreamt of having the horses in our backyard, look at them!”
Life has been an absolute adventure of new experiences at every turn. Nothing was easy… but as in everything, it was worth doing – and formative in our journey as a family.
John was fortunate to have had many formative experiences growing up: working in construction under his brother Ed’s wings, toiling in the fisheries with his mom’s mentoring, growing as an athlete in his brother Charles’ footsteps, understanding the basics of business as a realtor, discovering health and function as a RMT, and exploring the world with the encouragement of friends. When he met Alli, the exploration went far and wide in a cycling trip in the Caribbean and across South America. Then there was the exploration of North America and the Australian east coast in pursuit of OCR glory. Obstacle racing brought on many opportunities to build fitness challenges and work with both charities and schools.
Allison’s determination for happiness and health helped her turn a bad cycling accident into the driving force behind her functional fitness journey. Being a retired sedentary young adult equestrian in 2004, she found her love and talent in running when returning to college. This later blossomed into a 2nd place age group finish in the 2006 Ironman Canada. Shortly after she was rear-ended by a truck while cycling on the highway. Despite having 24.5% disability as per her doctors, she continued to live life to the fullest by attempting a 100mile foot race over California mountains and cycling partly across South America. She later discovered OCR as a run coach and excelled. This slim and slight runner went on to carry both her 3-year-old and newborn up steep mountain trails and set a couple world records running with a stroller. She built strength on her running fitness and conditioned her upper body to do weighted pull-ups – this from being unable to do a single one when she started. Now the 2018 World Enduro Obstacle Race Champion, she has developed the know how to develop a farm that will nurture happy, healthy people.
Grit Farm Fitness (as the name implies) revolves around growing mental toughness around fitness. Fitness that involves functional ability to work and cultivate the land. Growing that involves learning the essential skills and know-how to live on the land in a sustainable way and maintain the body in its best form for all conditions and life challenges.