Participants prepare for the Five-Gallon Challenge. (Photos provided)

By KEITH SAMPSON
V.P. of Business Development, PayProTec

WARSAW — Rarely do you get to combine a greater purpose into something you enjoy doing, but at CrossFit Haymaker, that is exactly what we get to do on Aug. 31.

Water for Good recently launched the Five Gallon Challenge to raise money and awareness for their clean water programs in the Central African Republic.

When I saw their video, it clicked. This can be done as a CrossFit workout. I started CrossFit in January, and it has changed my life, and what better way to change the lives others at the same time. 

One of the pillars of CrossFit is functional movements. Ryan Hill put the whole cause and WOD into perspective when he said, “for us, carrying a five-gallon jug of water weighing 44 pounds is not a functional movement, but for hundreds of children, women and men, it is daily functional movement.”

What started as an idea has developed into much more before its first event. Hopefully this will be propelled into the CrossFit community, spreading awareness and raising money through CrossFit boxes everywhere. The event hasn’t taken place yet and there are already other operations interested in doing it.

Water For Good created a website specifically for the CrossFit community at http://www.waterforgood.org/5gallonchallenge/crossfit/.

Along with having the preset times below for the Five Gallon Challenge WOD, which are free to the public to participate in and can be scaled to their abilities, CrossFit Haymaker will also have a one-mile course laid out where people from the community can show up and complete their Five Gallon Challenge as well as challenge others to carry the jug.

Gallon Challenge times:

5 a.m., 6 a.m., 7:15 a.m., 9:15 a.m., noon, 2:15 p.m., 4:30 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. at CrossFit Haymaker, 795 W. Market St.

The event can be found online at https://www.facebook.com/events/157201041280982/.