We couldn’t think of a better person to celebrate as we begin a New Year, than the woman who has the highest overall attendance at the gym at almost 1700 visits. It’s hard to put everything we love about Mandy in one blog because there is just so much. Mandy has been with CrossFit Odyssey just over six and a half years, although she has been doing CrossFit for about 10 years.

Sunday Story…Small Tasks We all know that consistency is the key to long-term growth and success. But it is very easy to lose sight of the significant accomplishments that take place from doing small tasks every day. I recently got a recap from my Whoop strap of my activity over the last year. I am not going to bore you with all the details of my activity over the previous year. Suffice it to say, I found the recap very revealing in the overall progress made. Remember, this was my “knee” year, when I had my knee replaced around Thanksgiving. Here is my point about consistency and how a small effort can turn into big results. Last year, according to Whoop, I walked about 4.2 million steps. 4,193,741 steps to be exact. Whaat!!! My first reaction was, “There’s no way! 4 million??” That is the equivalent of climbing Mt Everest 46 times! But when you break that down to a daily achievement, it is 11,490 steps every day of the year. Granted, I am probably moving a lot more than most people, but that still seems like a lot. Not 11,000 a day, but 4 million a year. What did you do last year that surprised you at the end of the year? Did you get to the box over 200 times last year (that’s only 4 per week!) Did you tell your loved ones you loved them over 300 times last year (less than 1x day)? What else? If you want to end next year with some impressive accomplishments, start small, start now, and do it every darn day! You'll be surprised at what you can accomplish by doing small tasks every day! If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results. John Mariotti www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com www.crossfitodyssey.com 775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Goals and Dreams It's that time of year again. The end of the year, when we start thinking about the things that we accomplished and the things we wanted to accomplish but maybe didn't quite get to. As we look forward to the coming New Year, what are your fitness goals? Are there any skills you'd like to improve? Skills that you meant to get better at this last year but didn't quite get to? Perhaps there are some things you're sure will show up here in a month or two for the CrossFit Open, but you're not quite ready. You haven't done the work that you needed to do to be as good as you know you can be. Well, it's time to figure out how to get to them. You can go ahead and schedule a goal review with Alex, if you like. You could talk to Ellie. You could talk to me. We can schedule a private session or two, or if you have some friends who have the same issues, they need to work on the same skills, we could set up a special class on a Saturday afternoon or maybe a Sunday morning, and get those skills honed in and ready to show off for the Open. Maybe it's something even simpler than that. Perhaps it's just "I want to be able to (fill in the blank here). I want to be able to back squat an extra 20 pounds by this time next year. I want to be able to do five strict pull-ups. If that's the case, then we need a plan. You need a plan to make that happen. If you don't have a plan and a date, all you have is a dream. So let’s set the goals, make a plan, and make it happen. If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results. John Mariotti www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com www.crossfitodyssey.com 775-338-2412The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.

Sunday Story…Be Kind! We're coming up at the end of the year here, which really means we're coming up on the 1st of the year. As you know, there'll be so many of your friends, neighbors, and relatives who are going to make resolutions. They're going to go to the gym. This is the year that they're really going to get in shape. And then, in the middle of February or the 1st of March, that resolution will be tossed into the garbage bin. We need to help those people. We need to give them a path to fitness so they can enjoy the same benefits you all do from the work you're doing. So, look through your friends and relatives and see if there isn't somebody who needs your help. I'm offering a new class. It'll be mid-morning Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11 am. That limits the population. We could be talking about people who have more flexibility in their schedules than those in a regular 9-5 job. But the point is that we're going to get stronger in this class and improve our cardiovascular fitness. We'll be doing that using Zone 2 training, VO2 max training, and sprint training. We'll include all those things throughout the cohort. If we care about these people, we need to show them the path. It's just like you can't make the horse drink water, but you can show him where the water is. Your job is to show him where the water is. Tell him what's going on here, who we are, and what we can do for them, and get them on their own journey to extraordinary. It's an act of kindness. If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results. John Mariotti www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com www.crossfitodyssey.com 775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Indulgences It's that time of year again, you know? Sweets are everywhere, drinks are flowing, and the resistance begins to break down. You know you can have one drink, but more than one becomes a problem. You know you can have one or even two bites of a sweet, but more than that becomes a problem. This is where we all struggle: finding the willpower and the desire to continue our journey and maintain the consistency of our diet and exercise. It would be a shame if we let one or two weeks ruin all our progress in a year. That's the prize to keep your eyes on. All of the progress that you've made, all of the good things that you've done, you don't want to erase in one meal or one week. Can you indulge yourself? Of course. Can you overindulge yourself? You can, but you probably shouldn't. So, look at the table groaning with all those delectable morsels, pick one or two, and have a bite or two of each, enjoying the hell out of every bite. Chew it thoroughly, close your eyes, and enjoy the taste, the feel, and the aroma of the food in your mouth and on your tongue. And then have another bite, and as you do, realize that maybe that second bite wasn't quite as satisfying, quite as good as that first bite, and you know every bite after that won't be as good. After that, it just becomes something to do that you're supposed to do. I'm supposed to eat the whole piece. I'm supposed to finish my plate. You don't have to. There's no “supposed to” here. Enjoy your indulgences, but don't overdo it in a way that sabotages all your progress. If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results. John Mariotti www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com www.crossfitodyssey.com 775-338-2412

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Sunday Story…Grateful One of the most powerful practices you can perform is gratitude. If you are reading this, you have much to be grateful for. Too often, we try to make gratitude about the big things, the momentous occurrences. But the practice of gratitude really requires us to find it in the simplest, smallest moments. Let's think about that. I have gratitude for: The breath that I take My body's ability to absorb oxygen and send it out to all the places it needs to go Being able to get up in the morning and move All my relationships and all of the people that are around me and in my life The world around me The food that I eat The scenery that I get to see You won’t have to look very far or very hard to find things to be grateful for. When you do this, all the other things that may bother you will slip away, and you will be left with warmth in your heart for all the blessings you experience in every moment. Gratitude is about the small things as well as the big ones. Life is full of moments of gratitude if we take the time to experience them. Gratitude is probably the single most important shift you can make that will improve your life. Viktor Frankl said, "The only freedom that man really has is his freedom to choose his attitude" - not just at Thanksgiving or Christmas, but every day, every moment. Cultivate an attitude of gratitude. If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results. John Mariotti www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com www.crossfitodyssey.com 775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Memento Mori When my father passed back in 2014, it was awe-inspiring how well he had planned for his passing. Everything was done for us, whether we wanted a memorial or not. The money went there; the stuff went there. And it was a smooth, easy process. I see so many times when that doesn't happen. It's not an easy process. It's a time of strife. People are grieved, and they are fighting about this and that because it hasn't been done right. And that person's wishes, which are unknown at that point, aren't being followed. Had we asked them, it probably wouldn't have turned out the way it did. I’m bringing this up now because it's something we all do. The fact is, is that we don't know when the end is coming. We know that it's coming, but we don't know precisely when, and the older we get, the closer we are to that date. So, it's time for all of us to think about how we want our affairs handled when we're gone. If you want to leave it to whatever happens, happens, you can. That's the easy way (for you), but the other way is to plan for it because it's going to happen, just like the sun's going to come up tomorrow, this is going to happen. It's a question of when, not if. So, plan for that, do the work, do the planning, do the thought process that it's going to take because it is a thought process. You are going to have to figure it out for them: How do you want it to look? You want music? What music do you want to play? You want AC/DC or Beethoven? What the heck do you want? Write it down, plan for it, make it happen. If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results. John Mariotti www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com www.crossfitodyssey.com 775-338-2412