by Josh Wackler, Oregon State (Alpha Beta) alumnus
Fitness and exercise have always been a main staple in my life. From playing highly competitive sports through high school to running marathons as an adult, staying in shape has forever been a top priority for me.
So Graduating college at Oregon State and moving halfway across the country to work for AGR presented me with a challenge. My fitness up to that point had always been supported by a routine. Practices on high school teams and then set schedules in college along with access to a top of the line campus fitness center made fitting exercise fairly easy. That all changed with a move to Kansas City.
Anyone who travels for a living understands how difficult it is to navigate exercise into a daily routine because more often than not your days are anything but routine. Early flights, late work-related dinners, and lack of access to decent exercise facilities make it much more difficult. Now imagine not only traveling for a living but doing so by couch hopping at fraternity houses from campus to campus for weeks, and sometimes even months at a time. It definitely forces you to get creative.
There were plenty of times when one of the undergraduates was generous enough to let me use his student ID so I could go use the campus fitness center. Some days I had to try to find a decent route outside to get some running miles outside (take note—not a smart move during the Winter in Fargo or Madison or in the Summer in Tucson or Gainesville). Some days I was even lucky enough to convince a group of the guys to head to the rec center basketball courts for a pickup game. That was a great way to get exercise in and establish rapport with the chapter.
During my 8 years on the AGR staff, I was able to visit 69 of the 71 chapters (at the time) around the country and also probably visited a dozen other campuses as sites for potential new colonies. And each one of them provided their own unique challenges to getting my exercise in, but in most cases, I was able to find a way to make it work.
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