Have you ever seen something so beautiful that it makes you emotional, so much so you can feel your eyes well up in appreciation of the sight that you are lucky enough to be witnessing?

Seeing my Son for the first time, half way around the famous Nurbergring on my GSXR750 motorbike. I remember these moments; they are the life’s great gifts that God to remind you that outside of the rat race life can be amazing.

These moments unfortunately, tend to be fleeting in nature. Just as quickly as the endorphins are released into the brain giving you that sense of oneness and happiness, they pass. The moment is gone, relegated from the present to the past, and “I am” to an “I did” now only a memory in the hippocampus part of the brain.

I mention this because, yesterday, I was fortunate enough to have one of these moments. It wasn’t a fleeting moment as well.

It lasted at least 30 minutes, from the outset it was good, then it got better and better then as all these moments do, it ended.

As with all of these experiences, I am left with a hunger to have this experience again.

Unlike both the birth of my son or a ride around the Nurburgring, I don’t have to wait that long to do this again, as the source of such pleasure is Tealise Gym in Mina Salam Hotel.

On recollection, ive been in Gym’s on 4 continents, ive been in slum gyms with No AC, where nobody speaks English and you have a 70% chance of catching polio when you pick up weight. Ive been in 5 Star boutique gyms, where the receptionist remembers your name, and comments how you’ve lost 1% body fat in the last two weeks.

Never, and I mean Never have I been in a gym as good and as comprehensive as Talise.

Not only have they got the very best equipment to track your every twitch and pull, a 25 meter indoor lane pool, 11 pools outside, a huge studio, TRX, free weights, Steam room, 7+ climbing wall, a café that distributes water and fruit ever 11 minutes, not only have they got all this but they have also have an altitude fitness room.

With some sort of scientific magic they change the nitrogen levels in the room to completely replicate the conditions of being on the mountain.

For our climb on Kilimanjaro having access to this room is a dream! I had pictured a small steam room type facility which we would sit in and get used to being in high altitude, boy was I wrong!!

Sergey, the fantastic manager at the gym, explained that before you go in the  chamber, every bit of you tested, fat content, bone density, heart rate, everything, a complete breakdown of your human being. Then comes the 12 days back to back training at high altitude. The room has everything, weights, rowing and running machines everything you need to train in a room that replicates being 3000 meters above sea level.

Training in such a room has the ability not only to get your body used to stress with less oxygen, but in the case of one of their trainers, it dropped the resting heart rate by 20BPM……20!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Im trying to arrange a baseline test at the gym for all of us, so we will have a real life example of how this works for the four of us, I cannot wait!

Flipping tires in the snow is effective, I’ve done it, rocky did it, but I tell you this, if you have the money and motivation, there is nothing on God’s green earth that comes close to Talise!!!

!!