OUR STORYWe lost everything.
We showed up anyway.
"It is what it is… now, what do we need to do next?"
CrossFit Trussville · Founded 2008 · Fire May 2023 · Rebuilt May 2025 · Trussville, Alabama
2008
Year We Started
2023
Year of the Fire
Weekends of Setup & Teardown
104
0
Days We Stopped Showing Up
2025
Year We Came Home
01
2008 — 2022
Before the fireBuilt from nothing. Year by year.
CrossFit Trussville opened in September 2008 in a 1,200 square foot garage with a pull-up rig made of pressure treated 4x4s and plumbing pipe, sharing space with a very small local MMA club. Andrew was a coach that tried to become an owner at 18 when a partner backed out and left him to pursue college alone. By 21, a full-time UAB student working a full-time job, he got his chance when the struggling gym came back around. The owners contacted him saying they were leaving and never looking back. The only difference from now and a few years ago is that the growing community from just a few years ago was now dead and declining fast. Only 7 members in the entire gym. And headed toward zero. Fast.
Despite the gloomy situation CFT was in. Andrew decided to rise to the occasion and pursue his dream of helping people improve their lives. He quit his job. He dropped out of college, with only 1 semester left, and he bought a failing business. The first 4 months saw virtually no growth and Andrew burnt through every dollar he had. With just $20 to his name, at the 6 month mark, membership started to swell and hit 40 members. At the 12 month mark they were at 75 members, a genuine pipe dream.
Then by 2012, with well over 100 members, we were unexpectedly forced out when the landlord terminated the lease because of “too many cars in the parking lot”. What Andrew found next was a flood-damaged and abandoned foreclosure on Railroad Street that had sat virtually vacant since 2003. A legitimate flood had taken out the previous owner and bankrupt the business that was there. Rust stains four feet up the walls. Barbed wire. Ivy everywhere. Oil spills on the floor. Only the city found utility in the building by storing old vehicles there.
What followed this transition to now, unexpectedly, owning a building was years of 12-16 hour days, very physical ones. Grinding floors, patching leaks, painting walls, building rooms, fighting building codes, all the while running the operations of the business and coaching. Andrew was essentially a one-man general contractor behind the scenes while trying to run the gym at the same time. Then in 2015, Candace left her career as a physical therapist assistant to join full time. She became, as Andrew describes it, the heart and soul of the place. In 2016, we added 2,200 square feet because the community demanded it. Growth was not slowing down. By 2018 and again in 2020, CrossFit Trussville was named Alabama's Best Gym.
People were meeting their future husbands and wives in class. Forming lasting friendships. And connecting outside of just exercising. Andrew and Candace were even engaged at the gym. Others even had gender reveals with the same people they had first done a pull-up alongside. CrossFit Trussville had become something nobody planned for, a place where people built their lives. It was never the building we were attached to. It was what the building allowed people to do for each other.
Then COVID hit. While gyms across the country shut their doors and waited, CrossFit Trussville kept going. Zoom classes. Small groups. Bible studies. We created resources and shared them with gyms nationwide, mentoring other gym owners behind the scenes and providing practical tools for how to keep serving members when the world had gone sideways. We did news interviews. Wrote letters to the governor. Met with the mayor. We adapted constantly and without complaint. Even though thousands of gyms around the country closed for good, our community didn't scatter. It held together, found new ways to show up for each other, and came out the other side closer than before.
By the time the pandemic passed, CrossFit Trussville had already proven something important about itself. When things get hard, they don't stop. We find a way.
The Road to 20232008 — Founded in a 1,200 sq ft garage. Pull-up rig made of 4x4s and plumbing pipe. Shared with an MMA club.
2010 — Andrew buys the gym at 21. Drops out of college, quits his job. 7 members. Headed to zero.
2012 — Forced to move. Finds a flood-damaged foreclosure on Railroad Street. Rebuilds it by hand over the next several years.
2015 — Candace joins full-time, leaving her PTA career. Becomes the heart and soul of the community.
2017 — ReBoot launches. Building grows from 5,500 to 7,500 sq ft after a two-year fight with railroad variance and permit approvals.
2018 & 2020 —Named Alabama's Best Gym twice. CrossFit Games athletes, Ironman finishers, and first-timers all training side by side.
2020 - 2023 — COVID. Zoom classes, small groups, Bible studies, resources shared with gyms across the country. Never missed a beat.
May 7, 2023 — The fire that changed our lives forever.
02
May 7, 2023 — 1:30pmIt was a Sunday.
Everything was gone.
I got called by Perry Wright on a Sunday afternoon. I thought she was joking when she said “the gym is on fire”. She assured me it absolutely wasn’t a joke and I needed to come up there immediately. I put my lunch down, got in my truck, and headed to the gym. As I was driving texts began to pour in, and the reality began to dawn on me. By 1:30pm on May 7, 2023, the building CrossFit Trussville had called home for over a decade was on fire. By the time it was over, there was nothing left. Eleven years of work. Every piece of equipment. Every wall we had built with our own hands. Every inch of a place where hundreds of people had changed their lives. Gone in an afternoon.
Candace was surrounded by our community, circled up in prayer, tears running. Not because of what was lost. Because of the fear of what might not continue. She wasn't mourning the structure. She was mourning the possibility that the friendships, the bonds, and the relationships might not have a place to keep growing. She was never attached to the building. None of us were. It was always about what the building made possible.
Two coaches at CFT, Brandon and Schmohl, are also firefighters. They were both off duty when the call came. They put on their gear anyway and personally fought the fire alongside the department while members and coaches watched. They literally risked their lives. It’s powerful.
While Candace held the community together emotionally, I started calling gyms to secure loan equipment, calling leasing agents to find somewhere to operate, and ordering supplies from Amazon with overnight shipping, all before the smoke cleared. Gabriel Wright, a coach at CrossFit Trussville, pastor at Gateway Family Church, a man whose wife Perry, son G2, and parents Cowboy and Sue all train at CFT to this day, came and asked me how I was doing.
My first response to someone asking me “How are you doing?” was "It is what it is.” Yes, this is my building, my business, my livelihood, all actively burning. But nobody was hurt, and life goes on. With fire hoses under our feet, all of the negativity, anxiety, worry, fear, and dread that you would expect to hear was not to be found. I had peace. I absolutely recognized the fact that the building was gone, but instead of focusing on what was out of my control, I decided to actively focus on what was in my control, and begin to take action.
It wasn't deflection. It wasn't avoiding reality. It was the complete, honest answer. I already processed the loss, accepted it, and moved on to the only question that mattered next. How are we going to take care of these people? It’s why Candace, Sophia, and myself work so well together. We all were ready to take on whatever responsibility we could to get our community together as quickly as possible.
May 8, 2023 — 5:00amThe first workout.
The day after.
The building burned on a Sunday. At 5:00am Monday morning, class was held. And it wasn't a boring AMRAP. It wasn't simple. I wrote a partner workout that night specifically to send a message: with or without equipment, with or without a building, we were going to keep getting you fitter.
That workout was named "The Phoenix." we programmed it every 3 months at first. At the time we thought for sure we’d only do it 4 times because we’d be back in the building in a year, right? Wrong. But I would add a note each time documenting exactly where we were in that moment in time at the church. Kind of like a time capsule. And now looking back, it’s really cool to see what was going on and what we were thinking in that moment.
Feel free to give this workout a try and let us know how you do. It’s a little deceiving and RX+ really is a gut check.
Here is the workout:
With a partner — every 2 minutes for 12 intervals:
Max rep 30 seconds Push-Ups
Max rep 30 seconds Air Squats
*7 Synchronized Burpees in remainder of interval
RX+: 12 Synchronized Burpees · Score: Total Push-Ups + Air Squats
"The Phoenix"
The following are the time capsule entries we logged in the workout notes in real time, without any edits.
This is exactly what we were going through and our true perspectives in that moment, start to finish:
May 7, 2023 — Day of the Fire, Workout Goes Live in WODIFY at 8pm
“This workout was written and completed by both our ReBoot and CrossFit programs on 5/8/23 at Gateway Family Church to forever commemorate the first workout after CFT had a catastrophic fire and was destroyed on 5/7/23. As I write this here, now, on the evening of 5/7/23, I say we will come back stronger than ever and remain ever resilient as we continually strive to get better every day. What seems surreal in typing this now, will eventually be a page in the history books of the story of CFT. We are a family of athletes. We were here for one another this afternoon while the building billowed, we were there as Brandon and Schmohl (even when they weren't on duty) put on their firefighting gear and personally risked their own health to combat the fire while our current and past members and coaches watched helplessly, and we will remain here for one another as we begin the next chapter. We love you guys and appreciate each of you more than you'll ever know.”
August 8, 2023 — Three Months In
“It is now 8/8/23 and we are completing this for the 2nd time to commemorate us surviving and beginning to thrive here at GFC. This will look crazy to look back on, but we built a bridge to run in the grass and parking lot of the church, poured a concrete foundation and mounted a Pull-Up rig outside to it with WB targets, carved a 400m trail run, we put up all equipment on Friday and get it all back out again on Sunday, we've saved as much as we possibly could out of the old gym, restored some, we have upgraded from two trailers that stored our equipment and JUST finished outfitting a 40' shipping container to store equipment. Next is adding Ski-Ergs and HSPU outside. It's a crazy process! Looking forward to 3 months from now.”
November 8, 2023 — Six Months In
“It is now 11/8/23. We have TWO 40' shipping containers, and the church is outfitting outdoor offices. We are getting ready to add more space for the church and for us. We also now have Ski-Ergs, handstand targets, actual sleds, gymnastics rings, and a heck ton more in the second container most people don't even know about… Our engineers (Structural, Civil, Survey, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Architect) are all done, and our GC is getting started this week. The next time we do this the old building will 100% be gone (if we get approval)…. that's a crazy crazy thought. Life is crazy, and we are so blessed.”
February 8, 2024 — Nine Months In
“It is now 2/8/24 and we took down the churches offices for them and they got a portable that is now out back, we painted the inside of the church for them and framed up two windows, we now have a 40' pull-up structure mounted INSIDE the sanctuary of the church (so we can now lift without having to be at the mercy of the rain), we now have HANDSTAND Targets inside the sanctuary as well (using these soon), we will have wallball targets next, we just added more spaces (30 total shared between RB/CF), we can now store things underneath the rig inside the sanctuary which will cut down on our setup and tear down time too , we were featured on the Trussville Tribune and our final meeting with the Design and Zoning Boards are next week where we should get approval and begin the demolition of the building where friendships were created, marriages came about from introductions, and lives were changed. We were in that building for 9 years and we have been here at GFC for 9 months. We are also about to do Friday Night Lights next month, here inside the sanctuary. This has been a process but this is 100% the final update where the building is still standing. Beyond thankful.”
May 8, 2026 — Three Years Later. And Finally Home.
“it is now 5/8/26 and we are home. Indefinitely. Exactly 3 years after the fire and we've now enjoyed this building for almost an entire year. Perspective, patience, and perseverance are all powerful things; and we, collectively, practiced all three, together. I'll be honest, we'll start doing this workout once every 5-10 years now... Not every year. We will never forget the lessons, the struggles, and the triumph, but that doesn't mean we have to keep doing this terrible workout! :) Reading back through all of the progression of the building and at the church was somewhat surreal. Still feels like yesterday to some degree. Genuinely, if you haven't read through it I encourage you to do so because I totally forget how ratchet it was in the beginning, but we made it work and genuinely turned that sanctuary into a legit gym --- thanks to Gateway and you all. “
May 2023 — may 202503
104 weekends.
Not one complaint.
At 5:00am the very next morning after the fire — less than eighteen hours later — CrossFit Trussville held class. Gateway Family Church had offered their sanctuary. And the community showed up.
Not once in the next two years that followed did we miss a single class.
That very afternoon following the fire we picked up an entire gyms worth of equipment and had it staged by 10:00am Monday morning in the church. We had 4 trailers and plenty of trucks with over a dozen members who showed up to help us load all of the equipment from a gym that failed in the next town over. We bought it all, loaded it up, and brought it home. No chance we were going to just to push-ups and air squats for 2 years, and we were loaded within 2 days, ready to rock alongside every other fully fledged gym.
Every Sunday after service let out, the CFT athletes that attended Gateway pitched in: 100+ sanctuary chairs up, pull-up rig uncovered, equipment hauled out of shipping containers and closets and set up across the sanctuary floor. A pull-up rig inside and a pull-up rig outside. Moveable squat stands. Rubber flooring. Rowers, ski ergs, Echo Bikes, kettlebells, handstand targets, ropes, bands, dumbbells, wall balls, boxes, you name it, enough for 250 members, set up by hand every single week.
Then every Friday, we would have to flip it back. Every piece of equipment out now had to go back up. Then all 100-plus church chairs returned exactly where they belonged so church could be held. It was always two people rolling dollies with stacks of chairs while everyone else was moving gym equipment, like clockwork. The sanctuary was always spotless for Sunday service. Not a trace left of the gym that had lived there all week.
We built a bridge across a creek for runners. Laid out a 400-meter course around the property. Constructed a concrete pad with an outdoor rig. Outfitted two storage containers filled with equipment. Knocked out church office walls to add 600 square feet for both organizations. And more. We made it work because it was the only option we were willing to consider.
After about a year, the church stopped feeling like a workaround. It just felt like CFT.
Side note: The hardest part about moving a gyms-worth of equipment wasn't the setup or the logistics. It was those rubber mats…. 40 of them at 100# pounds a piece. Awkward, borderline impossible to grip cleanly, hands cramping from dragging them across the floor. Every Friday. Every Sunday. 104 times. The kind of repetitive physical grind that really could make people quit or stop showing up, but it didn’t, not one complaint, because 250 members needed a gym ready on Monday morning.
104
Full setups and teardowns — every week
70%
Membership retained in a gym ¼ the size of our previous space
0
Days without class — even the morning after the fire
Andrew
Designing. Building. Solving.
Twelve to sixteen-hour days. Designing the new building from scratch, planning operations, managing insurance, contractors, and builders, solving church logistics, and keeping the ship afloat through two years of uncertainty that would have broken most people. When he wasn't at the desk, he was in the burned building pulling out what could be saved, and physically constructing what the situation demanded next. Andrew carried the weight of every decision, every cost, every delay and did it quietly, without complaint, without letting it show.
Candace
People. Community. Heart.
Every member heard from her. Every concern was met with warmth, honesty, and a smile that had no business being that steady given everything happening behind the scenes. Candace is the heart of CrossFit Trussville, the person who kept attitudes upbeat, perspectives positive, and the community feeling like a family even when they were training in a church with mats stacked in a shipping container. You can build a gym. You can program workouts. You cannot manufacture what Candace brings. She may not be the reason people came. She is undeniably the reason they stayed. The soul of CFT then, now, and always.
Sophia
Operations. Story. Earned Ownership.
She ran operations, told the story, and showed up every single day without being asked to give more than she already was. Truly the hands of CFT. Every piece of content that kept this community connected during two years of uncertainty. Every photo, every post, every honest update came from Sophia. She is the reason people on the outside knew what was happening on the inside. Without her, this story doesn't get told the way it deserved to be told. Without her, honestly, a lot of this doesn't happen at all. In 2025 we made her an owner because there was simply no other way to honor what she gave. She never asked for ownership. She never had to.
it is what it is04
Building the future
while living in the present.
There was no pause button. While Candace and Soph were running the church gym every single week, Andrew was simultaneously designing, developing, and building The PHNX Collective from scratch. Making construction decisions and managing contractor timelines with the same hands that were hauling rubber mats every Friday night.
The original target was November 2024. It slipped. Then slipped again. Every month the answer was next month. And every month that passed was another month of financial uncertainty, member uncertainty, and the particular exhaustion that comes from doing everything at once with no defined end date in sight.
The financial pressure was real throughout. Not catastrophic, but always present. The cost of the building, the uncertainty of membership, the question of whether new people would join a gym without a permanent address, factors outside our control that could have shifted everything at any moment. For two full years, it felt like we were only a month away from either relief or disaster. We never knew which.
We kept going anyway. Andrew, Candace, and Soph, all in overdrive, all three working more than anyone knew, all three refusing to let it show. The standard we tried to hold for our community never wavered. Not once.
Sophia ran operations and made sure the world outside understood what was happening inside. Every post, every photo, every piece of content that told the CFT story during the hardest season of its existence went through her. The story survived because she told it. In 2025, Andrew and Candace made her an owner. She didn't buy in. She earned it. After two years of sacrifice alongside us, through the fire, the church, the build, and everything in between, giving her ownership was the only thing that felt right.
And then there was the membership.
CrossFit Trussville went from 7,500 square feet to roughly 2,000 square feet literally overnight. Most people would expect to lose half the base, maybe more. I assumed we would lose 60% of our members. But we never lost more than 30 percent of the number of members we had the day before the fire. New people joined during the church season, some who had heard the story, and, more surprisingly, more people who had not heard the story. People didn’t join out of sympathy, they were joining because of our values, our service, and our results. People looked at a gym operating out of a sanctuary and still said: that's exactly where I want to train.
This showed everyone how truly strong our community was. When something goes wrong, we don't scatter. We show up harder. CrossFit Trussville has tested that theory more than most. It has held up every time.
May 23, 2025 — 139 Railroad Street05
730 days later.
We came home.
The doors to our forever home opened on May 23, 2025. 13,000 square feet across two stories at 139 Railroad Street in Trussville, Alabama. Designed from scratch, built while running a church gym, opened two full years after a fire took everything.
Our entire community was ecstatic. Everyone was relieved in a way that's hard to fully describe to someone who hasn't been carrying that weight for two years straight. The most surreal thing was knowing that on Friday, we could just go home. And then on Sunday, we could just… go home. For two years we couldn't make plans — we had to be there every single Friday evening and every single Sunday to flip the space, for 2 years. And then suddenly we didn't. We were finally free and getting back to normal.
The PHNX Collective is now home to CrossFit Trussville, The Dojang Martial Arts, Ironclad Wrestling, Lionspride Jiu-Jitsu, Resilient Physio Therapy, HRZN Media, and it runs events on the weekends. Multiple local businesses. Real owners. Real people building real things under one roof, the same roof that was designed and fought for and believed in during two of the hardest years any of us had ever lived through.
What used to be a 7-member failing gym in a 1,200 square foot garage is now something nobody planned for and everybody built together. We're not taking credit for that. We just showed up every day. The community made it what it is.
What We Know Now06
You can make it
through anything.
We’ve been through a lot of struggles; the gym literally failed and was bought by a 21 year old in 2010; with a nearly-bankrupting startup, a forced relocation, a flood-damaged building rebuilt by hand, a global pandemic, and a fire that took everything it had. Every single time, the response was the same: accept the reality, define what's next, design the route, and go.
That's not a philosophy that looks good on a wall. It's one that was tested for seventeen years and proven in real time, even in front of a community that was watching to see what would happen.
Don't get down in the weeds of a temporary setback. Know that something better is on the horizon. You just have to define that thing, design a route to get to it, aim, and go. Just like the phoenix, the fire is not the end. It's the beginning of something grander. You just need a little perspective.
That's what The PHNX Collective is named for. That's what CrossFit Trussville is built on. A positive outlook. A pragmatic approach. Discipline. Community. And the refusal to quit.
If you have those things, if you have people who show up when it's hard, who move rubber mats on a Friday night without being asked (and again on Sunday, for two years), who join a gym operating out of a church because they believe in what it stands for, the bad times will always end. They always do. You just have to outlast them.
We're still here. And we're not done yet. That’s our story, and thanks for hearing us out.
Andrew & Candace Rape
Founders & Owners — CrossFit Trussville & The PHNX Collective
We started the gym because we wanted to improve people's lives. We never set out to survive a fire or spend two years in a church or build a 13,000 square foot facility from scratch. We just showed up every day and refused to stop. What came out the other side is something we're genuinely proud of, not because of the building, though it's extraordinary, but because of every single person who walked with us through it. We take none of the glory. We extend all thanks to our members and give all glory to God for giving us this opportunity. This community is the reason we rebuilt. And it's the reason we're not done yet.
Sophia & Lee Contreras
Owners — CrossFit Trussville
Sophia joined CrossFit Trussville long before she had any ownership stake in it. Through the fire, the church season, and two years of rebuilding, she sacrificed alongside Andrew, Candace, the coaches, and the members without being asked to and without expectation of anything in return. In 2025, we made her and Lee owners, not as a transaction, but as the only acknowledgment we felt proportionate to what she had given. Some people buy their way in. Sophia earned her way in with blood, sweat, and tears.
-
Yes. On May 7, 2023, a fire destroyed the CrossFit Trussville facility at their location in Trussville, Alabama. The gym lost the entire building and all equipment. They held class the following morning at 5:00am and never missed a single class.
-
CrossFit Trussville relocated to Gateway Family Church of Birmingham in Trussville, Alabama the morning after the fire. They operated out of the church sanctuary for 104 weeks, setting up and tearing down the full gym every week, before opening The PHNX Collective at 139 Railroad Street on May 23, 2025.
-
The PHNX Collective is a 13,000 square foot multi-business facility at 139 Railroad Street in Trussville, Alabama. It is home to CrossFit Trussville, Cahaba City Church, The Dojang Martial Arts, Ironclad Wrestling, Lionspride Jiu-Jitsu, Resilient Physio Therapy, and HRZN Media. It was designed and built by CrossFit Trussville founder Andrew Rape following the 2023 fire.
-
CrossFit Trussville is owned by Andrew and Candace Rape and Sophia and Lee Contreras. Andrew founded the gym in 2010 at age 21 and has operated it continuously since, through a pandemic, a fire, and a full facility rebuild. Sophia Contreras became an owner in 2025 after years of dedication to the gym and its community through its most challenging chapter.
-
CrossFit Trussville has been open since September 2008, making it one of the longest-running CrossFit affiliates in Alabama and in the world.
Frequently Asked Questions
Come be part
of what we built.
CrossFit Trussville has been showing up since 2008. Come see what that looks like from the inside.