The Ultimate Gym Athlete 2011
And so, after nearly three years of waiting, Neil Cameron's result of 13: 36 has been beaten ... but that is only the end of the tale, lets look at the whole event.
Saturday 19th March.
Slightly nervous as we approached the ExCel in London, as both Jill and I and have not been to a trade show and didn't really know what to expect. This was an opportunity to expose the fittest guys and girls in mainstream gyms at the IFBB Grand Prix and Fitness Expo and World Gym Challenge.com had a stand, with equipment on loan from Jordan and Amazon Leisure and sponsors JST Nutrition.com This was a great opportunity to expose the sport for gyms - Gym X Training (GymXTC™ )
A real delight meeting Wayne and Phil from JST Nutrition. We had spoken several times on the phone and it was a pleasure meeting them both at long last. Now before us was a trade show that needed our full attention to maximise exposure of both companies and we set about setting up the stand.
The first runners.
A time table was planned for the day and the first guy to show was Rob Soames from Twickenham Virgin Active, unfortunately Paul Smith had to pull out due to injuries. We also had a drop out from first timer Meurice Robinson, Chloe Brooke and Jamie Baynard, which freed up space and made the event a little more relaxed in terms of races, timing and judging and also presented us opportunities to explore the show and not be tied up on the stand.
Rob (right) performed well with a brilliant bike ride on a life fitness bike, set up in bike mode and pretty challenging on the legs. It was looking sweet for Rob, who trained hard for this event and had the Camberley Ice Breaker at Intermediate level under his belt. Rob continued bravely and all in all put in a solid performance, with a 20:16 finish.
Stepping up to the challenge next was two guys who had traveled all the way from Ireland, Mark Delaney and Paul Yeomans. Both guys had been in the gym in the lead up to the event and came from the Portmarnock Sports and Social Club. Mark was competing again - having also competed in The Gorton Grueller 2007 and it was a first time for Paul. The event is designed in many ways to give that very much needed extra motivation in a gym and also a specific goal. Sadly for Paul, just as the end was in sight, with just a few reps into the step ups, he had to pull out and doing the very sensible exit strategy. No point in injuring yourself and continuing, you have to listen to your body very carefully and a event such as the World Gym Challenge no matter how far you have to go, it is always wise to fight another day, then to go on and cause further injury. Mark however completed the challenge in the fastest time of the day 18:24.
Local gym athlete from Fitness First London Bridge and good friend Bill McKeever turned up to compete. I had actually raced Bill at Brighton and on that occasion, Bill 
kicked my butt. A bit of friendly rivalry is always good at these events and later when I raced, I managed to pip his time. Unfortunately I was unable to take photos for much of this occasion, due to judging but cheering loudly from the sidelines was friends and family and it was a real pleasure seeing Bill, again, who is originally from Chicago, USA.
Alan Taylor (right) has now entered 12 official WGC events and is increasing his performance every time. Fitness Extreme in 2008 was Alan's introduction to events and since then he has returned on many occasions performing to the max and always giving a 100% performance.
The Run, Bike, Row.
Creating a gym challenge for gyms that anybody can do and measure their fitness in a CV capacity has intrigued WGC, and it's favoured course is the Run, Bike Row. This challenge is not about distance, it is about intensity ! And that is where a true measure of fitness can make an average looking guy, into a Clarke Kent wannabe. On this occasion it was WGC Advanced Gym Athlete Doug Harrison. This challenge had been conducted in the USA at Core Dynamics gym and we wanted to test it for anybody in the UK to try. Doug stepped up to the mark and was interviewed by Active TV before he set about doing it. As a bench mark and using Life Fitness equipment Doug finished in 8:59 and splits will be published when the challenge can finalised with further talks with Help For Heroes.
In summary
Much of the day was captured on camera and there will many short sharp minutes for you to enjoy the day over the coming weeks on You Tube, and lot more information on the day, but it has to be said, for a first event at a venue of this magnitude, and for the unknown territory that we had stepped into, both Jill and I are extremely grateful for those who turned up on the day and went through, the toughest Gym X Training Challenge (GymXTC™) The World Gym Challenge - The Ultimate Gym Athlete.
