BY CHACE DAVY, Staff Reporter
You’ll see them wearing their unique shirts in the University Recreation Center for the rest of the month of February.
Forty-nine Central Washington University students signed up to participate in the inaugural “Indoor Iron Man” competition in January. Each participant received a dri-fit shirt to show off while they spend February striving to complete one of the hardest tests of physical fitness a person could participate in.
A traditional Iron Man competition is an extreme fitness test in which competitors go on a 112-mile bike ride, run a full marathon and swim 2.4 miles—equivalent to 154 one-way trips across the Aquatic Center pool—typically done in a single day.
This Iron Man competition is spread out over all 28 days of February. According to Eric Scott, Intramural Sports special events coordinator, the competition is intended in part to help keep students true to their New Year’s resolutions.
“Now is about the time where you see people drop those resolutions,” Scott said. “Hopefully this 28 days creates a lifestyle, rather than a one day event.”
Competitors can keep track of their progress via the “LF Connect” app that is available for users of Android devices and iPhones. University Recreation recently purchased new cardio equipment from Life Fitness that, when plugged into a compatible device with the app running, tracks your progress while you run on the treadmill. Unfortunately for the competitors, things aren’t quite that easy for the swim and the bike portions of the event.
“They have to track it all, then sit down on their app and type in the information for their activity,” Scott said. “It’s really an honor-based system.
Scott pulled open a drawer in his office that was filled with coffee mugs, water bottles, and Clif bars, which, among other things, are going to be used as weekly prizes for winners of random criteria, such as most miles run or biked.
He stressed, however, that winning these prizes is not the primary goal of the event.
“What we want to encourage is that we support everybody throughout the process and they all finish by February 28,” Scott said. “That would be the best part of the program to me, is if we have 100 percent retention of all these people and they all finish the event.”
To help advertise how participants are doing, there will be a big bar graph displayed across one of the walls in the Recreation Center displaying participants’ progress throughout the month.
If you missed out on signing up this year, there isn’t much to worry about, unless you’re graduating between now and next February. According to Scott, this event might be run annually during the shortest month of the year.
University Recreation has hosted fitness events, such as an NFL Combine Day and Kings and Queens of Fitness, before this event, but never quite had the draw of people as this event did.
Because this event had such a draw, Scott sees promise for future fitness events based on events that other universities host.
Currently in the works is what Scott referred to as “Century Club,” where students would attempt to complete 100 miles running, or 500 miles on a bike (the logistics haven’t quite been figured out yet) over the course of the entire quarter. The winner would get a t-shirt and their photo on a wall of fame.
