Hi all,
It’s getting near the end of winter here in New Zealand and I’m now part way through our company’s “Winter Series” of athletic endeavours. One of my co-workers suggested a series of competitive events to inspire training over the winter, with races held in early spring. I worked with him to polish the concept and this is our second year. It is probably the best idea this guy has ever had and I thought some of you may be interested in using it too. It’s to inspire fitness and health and soooo much more.
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at the beginning of winter there is a weigh in for the biggest loser challenge.
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at the end of winter there are 6 athletic competitions and the weigh out.
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The winner of each event gets 100 points and the others get points based on their percentage of finishing time.
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The events are, swim, bike and run, plus the biggest loser challenge. In each event there is a sprint event and an endurance event (not tooooo long). The swim has a 50m sprint and a 1000m timetrial. The bike has a 1000m sprint and a 40km TT. The run has a 100m dash (alot further than you remember from highschool) and a 1/2 marathon. Then of course the weight loss at the end
The events were chosen so that some degree of training was required, but to be achievable for the intended mass audience we were trying to attract. We encouraged cheating and trash talking. Good cheating gets rewarded and bad cheating gets punished.
Last year it went like this:
The 1/2 marathon was first up. One guy wasn’t confident his knee would hold up, so cheated by riding his bike for part of the course! He wasn’t found out until some forensic time checks were investigated. He got zero points for the run because he didn’t actually do it. He did get 25 points for very nearly pulling off a great cheat. We had a guy at 187.5kg! 413lbs) He showed up for the 1/2 marathon. He walked the whole thing and even though he stopped for a big breakfast at a cafe along the way, he easily broke 4 hours and earned I think 53 points. I use this to illustrate that anyone can compete. Same guy thundered out a 19 second hundred metres. Took about 50m to pull up to a stop but he did it and managed some surprising points out of it.
In the swim he also managed to complete the 1000m swim and garnered about 25 points for his 50 minute time! One of the best cheats was when a non-cyclist showed up with a ringer and a tandem bike! He didn’t win, but got waaaay more points than if he rode alone.
I managed to win 2 events last year (swims) plus the weight loss (by cheating) and podiumed in a couple more. It was great fun.I also won overall.
This past weekend we did the swim and I managed 3rd in both events, after closely fought batttles. I still nearly got the maximum points so I’m well on the way to repeating last years victory. Some say the weightloss is unfair, but if you don’t need to lose any weight, you are predisposed to doing well in the other 6 events so it is pretty fair in reality.
If you would like to host one of these competions in your own workplace, or club, let me know and I can give you the full run down and email a spreadsheet we have for determining the winner.
It really is a blast and I highly recommend it. In our office the trash talking and back handed tactics have been a blast. Things like eating and drinking massively for 2 days prior to the weigh in, having steel capped boots on etc. Or buying other competitors cake and donuts! OR not eating or drinking for 2 days prior to the weigh out, along with no underwear or sox, and actually weighing my clothes for weigh out day. All part of the fun, cheating, and trash talking, bound to bring out some great camaraderie in your workplace.
TriDork
p.s. for a donation to the TriDork racing fund, I can pass on several excellent cheats if you are interested.