On 4th July we ran a Men's Day built around a simple idea: getting better as a man isn't only a physical project. Around 40 men met at the gym and spent the morning with Andy Caine, a former GB runner who spent years inside Nike, Puma and Foot Locker before founding Create Your Zero. The day started with a 5K. It ended with a room full of men being honest about what they're avoiding.
The physical half was the easy half. A 5K to start, then straight into an ice bath with a two minute hold, then a shower and the sauna. Two minutes in cold water is long enough that the only thing you can do is decide to stay in it, which is the point of putting it in the middle of the day rather than at the end. It sets a tone. By the time everyone was warm again, the group had already done something together that most of them would have talked themselves out of alone.
The workshop was the real work. Andy's background is unusual for this kind of session. He raced at international level and then spent a career on the commercial side of sport, and what he builds now through Create Your Zero pulls together work and life, resilience, physicality, nutrition and recovery rather than treating any one of them in isolation. His stated purpose is "to inspire and educate so others live the lives they truly desire", and on the day that looked like a visualisation followed by the conversation most men will do almost anything to avoid: how we actually turn up day to day, what we're dodging, and where we know we're falling short. Forty men in a room being straight about that isn't a normal Saturday morning. It's also the reason this place exists. We're a male-only gym because the training is only part of what men need from a room like this. Men's Days come round in different formats through the year.
