When CrossFit Founder and CEO Greg Glassman arrived in Washington in September 2003 for a one-day seminar that ended with Helen, Kurtis Bowler immediately knew he had not been doing CrossFit at all in the preceding months.

“Prior to that, I thought I was doing CrossFit,” Bowler says. “But it turned out all I was doing was not resting as much between weightlifting exercises.”

At 19:35, he finished “dead last” in Helen.

“Got beat by a lady, a 53-year-old lady that weighed 95 lb. soaking wet,” Bowler jokingly says.

Less than a year later, Bowler opened Rainier CrossFit in July 2004 in Sumner, Wash. He’s now also a member of the Level 1 Seminar Staff and the North West Regional Director.

Bowler says one of the reasons the CrossFit community has been so important to him is because of his oldest son, 12-year-old Casey, who is deaf and has fragile X, a condition similar to autism.

“It doesn’t matter where we go with CrossFit, Casey is always Casey, and he’s always at home … ,” Bowler explains. “He’s grown up in this environment, and this is his happy place. And everybody always treats him like Casey. … That may be why the community part of all this is so important to me, because it’s been huge for him.”

Bowler’s other child, 7-year-old Sam, is one of the lucky kids who’s grown up in a CrossFit gym.

“He was born and raised in a CrossFit gym. Like this is all he’s ever known. He thinks that this is what everybody does,” Bowler says.