the people you suffer with

why getting stronger was never meant to be a solo pursuiT

We spend a lot of time talking about individual discipline.

Get up early.
Do the work.
Stay consistent.
Push through when you don't feel like it.

And all of that matters.

But over the last couple of years, I've become convinced that we're missing another part of the equation.

The people around us.

There's something different about doing hard things with other people.

A workout you might quit on your own becomes a little harder to walk away from when someone is suffering beside you.

A run you might skip becomes harder to avoid when you know someone is waiting for you.

And sometimes, when you're convinced you're finished, another person simply saying let's go is enough to get you moving again.

That's not weakness.

I think it's how we're wired.

IT STARTED WITH A RACE

The Celtic Spartans didn't begin with a business plan or some grand idea about building a community.

It started with a group of friends deciding to do something hard together.

We signed up for a Spartan race.

Then we had to train for it.

So we started running. Lifting. Carrying things. Sending each other workouts. Holding each other accountable.

There were plenty of jokes and plenty of shit talking along the way.

But something else started happening.

People kept showing up.

The race gave us a reason to start, but eventually the race wasn't really the point anymore.

The training was.

More specifically, training together was.

SHARED SUFFERING

Sebastian Junger explores something similar in Tribe — the idea that people can develop unusually strong bonds through shared hardship and common purpose.

That idea stuck with me.

Because I've watched a version of it happen in our own little group.

Nobody particularly enjoys carrying something heavy when their lungs are burning.

Nobody wakes up excited to do burpees in the dirt.

Nobody halfway up a hill thinks, I wish this hill were longer.

But do enough of those things alongside the same people and something happens.

You accumulate experiences together.

You remember who kept going.

You remember who came back for somebody else.

You remember the guy having a terrible day who showed up anyway.

Those moments create something that a leaderboard can't measure.

Trust.

BUT SOMETIMES IT SHOULD BE JUST YOU

There is another side to this.

Because I don't believe every difficult thing needs to be shared.

Some of my favorite adventures have been completely alone.

I've spent hours by myself on trails, sometimes not entirely sure where I was going, and found something almost cathartic in the solitude.

No conversation.

No one setting the pace.

No one to impress.

And more importantly, no one to fall back on.

There is something valuable about putting yourself in a situation where the only person responsible for getting you through it is you.

The conversation becomes internal.

Do I keep going?

Can I figure this out?

What happens when nobody is watching?

Those experiences teach you something different.

A group can show you the power of belonging.

Solitude can show you what you're capable of when belonging isn't available.

I don't think one is superior to the other.

Circumstance matters.

There are adventures I want to experience surrounded by friends.

And there are trails I still want to disappear down by myself.

Both can make us stronger.

THE POWER OF BEING EXPECTED

But when the circumstance calls for community, there is enormous power in knowing someone expects you to show up.

Accountability is usually described as someone making sure you did what you said you were going to do.

I think there's a better version of it.

Being expected.

There's a big difference between:

I should probably work out today.

and:

The lads are expecting me at seven.

One depends entirely on how motivated you feel.

The other involves belonging to something.

And belonging changes behavior.

I've experienced this myself during a period when injury made training frustrating and unpredictable.

There were plenty of days when doing nothing would have been easier.

But it's considerably harder to disappear when you're surrounded by people who expect you to keep moving forward.

Sometimes you're the person pushing everyone else.

Sometimes you're the person being pulled along.

Over enough time, everyone gets a turn at both.

SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS TUESDAY

At some point, we started meeting at Sinaloa on Tuesday nights.

It was the dead of winter.

Seven o'clock at night. A track with absolutely no lighting. Most evenings it was cold, wet, windy, or some combination of all three.

So we wore headlamps.

Sandbags. Buckets. Carries. Push-ups. Burpees. Forty-five minutes of work in the dark.

I'm sure we looked completely insane to anyone driving past.

A handful of headlights bobbing around a black track in the wind and rain, occasionally disappearing toward the ground for another set of push-ups or burpees.

But that was the mission.

And for a group of Irish expats, there was something strangely familiar about all of it.

We grew up in a place where waiting for perfect weather wasn't really an option.

If you waited for the rain to stop before playing football, training, running, or simply going outside, you might be waiting a very long time.

You learned early that the conditions didn't have to be perfect to get on with it.

So we got on with it.

Nobody deliberately set out to create a tradition.

Nobody said, This is going to become our thing.

We just kept meeting on Tuesday nights.

Eventually it had a name.

Sinaloa Carry Club.

And Tuesday became Tuesday.

The weather didn't particularly matter.

Motivation didn't particularly matter.

You knew where to be.

You knew people would be there.

You knew it probably wasn't going to be comfortable.

And you showed up.

Looking back, I think there's something powerful about that simplicity.

We spend enormous amounts of money and energy trying to optimize fitness—programs, equipment, supplements, technology, data.

All of those things can have value.

But sometimes one of the most effective training tools is much simpler:

A place to be.

People waiting for you.

And the understanding that we're going whether it's raining or not.

KNOW WHEN YOU NEED EACH

This experience has changed how I think about training.

I still believe deeply in personal discipline.

Nobody else can do your push-ups.

Nobody else can run your miles.

Nobody else can make your decisions for you.

At some point, whether you're surrounded by twenty people or standing alone on a trail, you have to do the work.

And maybe that's the point.

There are times when we need solitude.

There are times when the challenge should be you versus you.

There are times when getting a little lost on a trail and figuring your own way home is exactly what you need.

But there are also times when we need people around us.

People who challenge us.

People who depend on us.

People who laugh at us.

People who occasionally drag us through something miserable.

People who expect us to come back next Tuesday.

That's become a big part of what EVOLVE means to me.

Not eliminating the individual journey.

Not pretending every difficult thing needs to become a group activity.

But creating opportunities for people to do difficult things together when together makes us stronger.

Because races end.

Workouts change.

Goals change.

Some adventures we'll share.

Others we'll take alone.

The important thing is continuing to seek out both.

Know when you need the group.

Know when you need the trail to yourself.

And keep showing up for both.

WE LEARN. WE ADAPT. WE EVOLVE.