Holiday Challenge Man

The 20^th Annual Holiday Challenge is in full swing here at Concept2 and our workout room has been buzzing with activity. There’s something about the spirit of the season (and the challenge itself!) that inspires us to participate; for some of us it’s one of the many challenges we are part of during the year and for others it may be the only one. That’s okay—it’s all meters in the bank, as we like to say here, or actually in our Online Logbooks.

There’s one person in particular who is a workout room regular regardless of whether or not there’s a challenge underway. Shawn LaRose has been at Concept2 for 34 years—20 of those years were spent as a service technician, and most recently he’s been on the shipping team handling international shipments and delivery logistics for our resellers.

Shawn likes to say that “10k a day keeps the doctor away” and, indeed, his go-to workout the last several years has been a 10k on the RowErg or BikeErg five days a week. And he’s on track to complete the 200k goal in the Holiday Challenge. “Because I exercise and enter my meters into the online logbook regularly, the challenges just naturally happen,” says Shawn.

“The Holiday Challenge is probably my favorite. There’s always a marathon day where the workout room fills up with people doing either a half or full marathon on their choice of erg. A movie will be playing and there is always lots of encouragement amongst the group. And I usually do a little extra to burn off all of the holiday food and cheer.” That “little extra” has amounted to over three million Holiday Challenge meters for Shawn.

While he switches between ergs to keep the meters coming, Shawn’s preferred machine is the BikeErg. “On days when I’m less motivated, I find it easier to hop on the BikeErg. Technically, the workouts are the same, but I like to see the meters rolling by faster on the BikeErg monitor.”

Shawn offers some advice to both regular ergers and those embarking on the Holiday Challenge for the first time. “Even on those low-motivation days, stick with it. You can make the workout a little shorter or a little less intense, but especially this year, with fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, every meter counts. Regardless of how I feel when I get on the erg, I always get off feeling glad that I did a workout.”

There's still time to participate in the 20th Annual Holiday Challenge. And in honor of the 20^th anniversary, we’re offering a special incentive to help celebrate: If we reach a total of 20,000 people participating in the challenge, Concept2 will add $20,000 to the total amount raised. Let’s make this goal together!