May 2010 brought the rain to New Zealand and brought XLR8 Silver to Dubai in a balmy 35+ degrees. Both Matthew Bell and myself, travelled to Dubai for the week long series of courses and training, where they were joined by local XLR8 Trainer James Houghton. Together they teamed up to run both the XLR8 Bronze and Silver programs.
The Repton School again supported the program in providing the venue, and it was great to see some familiar faces both here and at the Asian 5 Nations international rugby match between the Arabian Gulf and South Korea - a good come from behind win for the Gulf 21 – 19.
The highlight of the week was getting the XLR8 Silver course launched within the UAE and also to find another great XLR8 Trainer to deliver the courses in Phillip Elder.
The Silver program began with a morning of XLR8 methodology at the new MEFITPRO office in Al Quoz. It was really valuable to hear from the course participants as to how they are using their skills from the Bronze program and to share each others training ideas.
After lunch it was onto the Quay Club for an afternoon of lateral speed, plyometrics and overspeed training in what has to be said was a pretty spectacular setting. The plyometrics module has recently been rewritten to accommodate the high level of interest in this area, and the overspeed module seemed to be a favourite amongst those who got ‘assisted’ along the beach infront of the Burj Al Arab.
What a great outlook! The Burj Al Arab.
It also provided an opportunity to visit both Dubai Mall and the Mall of the Emirates. You would have thought in 4 or 5 visits I would have got there by now, but needed the encouragement of Matthew to give the credit card some quality time. Funny to think that both malls are big enough to accommodate your morning run. We followed this up with a relaxing evening on a Desert Safari… so not all hard work!
Inside the Mall – a massive fish tank. You can clearly see the shops in the reflection.
Inside the Mall – an ice rink to go with the downhill skiing!
The Desert Safari – not sure the camel owner was that pleased of us taking a pic.
No lost baggage or delayed flights on this leg, so a nice change from last time when I managed both. Trivia question though, if anyone knows the correct name of these 2 buildings, it would be good to clarify so we can tell the local taxi drivers who seem not to know, which proved a challenge since our hotel was quite new and this was the only landmark… if you have been to Dubai you will know what I mean. Saying the two towers that look the same got you to completely the other end of town! We had it narrowed down to a) Twin Towers b) The Chrysler Towers c) Dual Towers d) give the taxi driver a map.
What are they called?
Thanks again to the lads at MEFITPRO in Greg and James for the work that goes into getting the courses running and great to see things taking shape. Looking forward to the launch of XLR8 Gold in the near future.
All the best, JT