Inspiring Story – Chris Callow – 100km Rowing Challenge!

Our latest member inspiring story is from long term member Chris Callow.  Chris trains with our Personal Trainer Jan Kawka every week and began doing so nearly a decade ago. He has taken part in several fitness challenges with us over the years including our charity spinathon in 2021 and virtual marathon in 2020 and has now set himself the personal challenge of a 100km row in one day on our ergometer!  He’s doing this in the gym on Friday 21^st June and is expecting the ambitious challenge to take around 10 hours.

We spoke to Chris to find out why!? Chris wanted to support our two charities, two wonderful local children’s charities FACES and St John’s School, and he also wanted to set himself a challenge.  He finds this really helps him to focus on his training and helps motivate him at the gym. As we can all appreciate, having a consistent goal to focus on helps us to stay committed to training! We know that challenges, be it big ones like the one Chris is undertaking or smaller steps to increase your fitness level, can really help with drive and motivation.  And knowing you will help others who really need the funds is just that added motivator that can make the pain worthwhile!

So, what has Chris done to prepare himself for the challenge?

As mentioned above Chris trains with Jan once a week.  He proposed the challenge to Jan back in February and Jan has ensured the appropriate intensity to their training sessions to match the challenge.  Chris also worked with Neeraj from our Fitness team and undertook our advanced strength training course to supplement and support his other training.  With the challenge in mind Chris has been really committed and prioritised getting into the gym four times a week.  Jan has told us: “this extra work is really showing in his fitness levels and endurance. It’s not going to be easy (mentally and physically) but with all the training Chris has put in place and his experience as an ex-rower, we know he will smash it.”

Good Luck Chris!  Thank you for fundraising for our charities!  We will keep you fuelled with jelly babies (and other sensible nutrition!) throughout the day and your favourite diet coke on ice (or two!) will be waiting for you in the Club Lounge at the end!

If you’d like to support Chris by sponsoring him – you can do so here. We will also have some old-fashioned buckets next to him on the day should cash donations be easier and the Reception Team can also take card payments.

If you are training for any sort of fitness or endurance challenge, or you just want the challenge of being a better version of you, our experienced team of personal trainers will be able to help and advise and are available for training sessions. If you’d like to find out more, please email [email protected].