Listowel strongman readies for one ‘final’ charity challenge

A strongman from Listowel is getting ready to retire, but not before one last charity challenge. CTV London’s Scott Miller explains.

Chris Kurz has spent half his life training for his sometimes-crazy charity fitness challenges.

“This event will mark 20 years of training for these events. So yeah, we do two years of training per event, so we’re on year 20 of training,” said the Listowel athlete.

Kurz started his fitness challenges for charity in 2010 with an ultra marathon. He completed two more of those, before moving onto strongman challenges, like pulling a Zamboni through Listowel, or carrying a yoke from end of town to the other or carrying a 400-pound tire around the Listowel Fairgrounds track.

Next weekend, he’ll pull a lot of those elements together and add more for a 24-hour fitness decathlon, which will include 200 “strict” pull-ups, 600 push-ups, and 900 calf raises, starting Sunday, May 18 at 5 p.m. and ending at 5 p.m. on Monday, May 19.

“People all think it’s a misprint when they read it, which is kind of cool and flattering at the same time. But no, we’re legit. We’re going to be there for 24 hours, busting our butt,” said Kurz.

Kurz, who turns 44 later this month, said this will be his final strongman challenge for charity. He’s completed eight amazing events since 2010, raising over $200,000 for the Listowel General Hospital, Cystic Fibrosis Research, and more recently, local school nutrition programs. But he said it’s time to hang up his weight belt and let someone else take on the charity fitness challenge.

“It’s been a whirlwind. It’s been very gratifying. I’ve met a lot of cool people,” he said.

“I don’t know where I would be personally or professionally had I not found helping others, because I’ve gained so much personally from this as well.”

Kurz will take over the arena floor at the Steve Kerr Memorial Arena in Listowel for his 24-hour charity challenge. He hopes to raise $50,000 for school nutrition programs, with his final “ultra” fitness event.

“We’ve got some different ideas of how we’re going to raise money moving forward with fitness as a component, but it’ll be more of a community-wide thing, as opposed to one person being the hamster on the wheel,” said Kurz.

You can learn more about his Victoria Day long weekend “fitness decathlon” event by following “The Chris Kurz Fund” on Facebook. You can donate to his final event, by visiting this website.