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Friday, August 29, 2025

Go hard or go home!

by

20140723

Team Guardian Me­dia Ltd (GML), is at it again. But this year mem­bers say they are more con­fi­dent and more equipped to take on the an­tic­i­pat­ed Hard­core Caribbean 2014 event, where they hope to de­fy an in­tri­cate ob­sta­cle course that will test their strength, en­durance, fit­ness but most of all, their bond as a team. As one mem­ber put it, ei­ther you go hard or go home.

As they gear up, the pub­lic can see be­hind the scenes of the team's prepa­ra­tion for the Au­gust 10 chal­lenge in a se­ries of five minute pro­grammes that will be aired on CNC 3's Morn­ing Brew every Fri­day un­til the last week be­fore Hard­core.

In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, se­ries pro­duc­er and team mem­ber Akeisha Fran­cis said the se­ries was much more than pub­lic­i­ty for the net­work. She said the in­ten­tion of the re­al­i­ty se­ries was to show the team's growth over the weeks, but more im­por­tant­ly to show­case the evo­lu­tion and progress that in­di­vid­ual mem­bers are mak­ing.

"The team is so much big­ger this time around since we opened it up to all GML em­ploy­ees, we moved from hav­ing 13 mem­bers from CNC3 last year to 25–a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease. With the ad­di­tion we have gained such an in­ter­est­ing group of per­son­al­i­ties," she said.

"Ex­tend­ing the team has al­so cre­at­ed a sense of fa­mil­iar­i­ty among staff. Awk­ward­ly enough, even though we all work in the same build­ing, every­body does not know every­body. So this was a great op­por­tu­ni­ty to put names to faces," said Fran­cis.

She added the train­ing which is done three days a week has al­so al­lowed work­ers to bond more in the work place and even be­yond the of­fice.

"Peo­ple who nev­er hung out with each oth­er be­fore are do­ing it now. They or­gan­ise limes out­side the of­fice and that too helps with build­ing team spir­it. This is what we ab­solute­ly need to be suc­cess­ful at the chal­lenge this year."

Fran­cis said there are times when per­son­al­i­ties have clashed and tem­pers have flared, but it's nev­er enough to break up the team.

"This is re­al­ly what we want­ed to project to the view­ing au­di­ence through the se­ries. Maybe view­ing our se­ries have in some way has been a form of en­cour­age­ment to oth­er teams. It cer­tain­ly has been en­cour­ag­ing to our mem­bers."

Get­ting to know the team

The se­ries has been a very in­ter­est­ing watch for view­ers who have seen Team GML mem­bers pass­ing tough fit­ness tests, do­ing a yo­ga class, sit­ting through nu­tri­tion work­shops and ven­tur­ing on a dif­fi­cult hike to Saut D'Eau, the CNC3 re­al­i­ty se­ries cov­ers the GML Hard­core Caribbean team's prepa­ra­tion from start to fin­ish.

The pub­lic saw the less grace­ful team mem­bers who may have had to tight­en their co-or­di­na­tion skills, the dra­ma queens, the group clown, the team play­er and the high­ly self-mo­ti­vat­ed who are the team's in­spi­ra­tion.

One of those in­spi­ra­tional team mem­bers is Sher­win Arthur who en­tered the chal­lenge in 2013, but had to drop out af­ter his doc­tor ad­vised him to dis­con­tin­ue to pre­vent se­ri­ous in­jury to his bad knee.

Arthur, a mar­ket­ing ex­ec­u­tive who has been bat­tling with weight prob­lems for some time, said af­ter hav­ing to quit last year, he was cer­tain that he want­ed to have a go again this year. He says the chal­lenge is more than just about the com­pe­ti­tion, it is about achiev­ing a per­son­al goal.

"There is a place I want to reach in my per­son­al and phys­i­cal life and I felt now was the right time to join the team. I felt that com­mit­ment was nec­es­sary not just to be a part of the team but to make that change in my per­son­al life."

He said he was al­so do­ing it to de­stroy the stig­ma at­tached to over­weight peo­ple.

"Whether it is walk­ing in­to a store and be­ing told right away they don't have what you are look­ing for in your size, with­out even giv­ing you a fit­ting, or you are told you have to pay for the next seat when you're trav­el­ling, these are the kinds of is­sues peo­ple like me face every­day," he said. "I am hop­ing that through this chal­lenge peo­ple can see we are very much nor­mal peo­ple like every­one else and we can do it all once we put our minds to it," said Arthur.

Since tak­ing on the Hard­core chal­lenge this year, Arthur has lost a sig­nif­i­cant amount of weight. He is al­so on a spe­cial di­et with his meals pre­pared by Jody White, di­rec­tor of fit­ness so­lu­tions com­pa­ny, Slim Down 360. White is al­so the team's train­er and one of its spon­sors. The GML team is al­so spon­sored by Carib Light and CNC3.

When the T&T Guardian spoke with White he said Arthur's com­mit­ment to his goal is prov­ing it­self in the changes his body has al­ready be­gun to make and the de­ter­mi­na­tion he ex­hibits in his quest.

"Sher­win is a fel­la who ris­es to the oc­ca­sion all the time. I have seen Sher­win in­jure his knee on a run that we did, but he found a stick and limped out the rest of his chal­lenge, and that tells me he has sheer de­ter­mi­na­tion and the abil­i­ty to do any­thing he sets his mind to," said White.

"My mantra is to go hard or go home!" Arthur said.

Meet the Train­er

White is not a le­nient train­er. Three things mat­ter to him– obe­di­ence, team work and re­sults.

Some of the team of­ten think he push­es them too hard and they say this on the se­ries. But the hands-on White, in­sists ex­cel­lent re­sults re­quire ex­cel­lent prepa­ra­tion.

The 27-year-old per­son­al fit­ness train­er and nu­tri­tion coach walks the team care­ful­ly through their re­quired di­et. He en­sures mem­bers get a full range of work­outs dur­ing their three days of train­ing. From in­door to out­door ex­er­cis­es, White al­so ex­posed Team GML to prac­tice ses­sions with Cen­tral FC foot­ball club and the Spe­cial Olympics ath­letes as part of their train­ing. They are al­so go­ing to do a few ses­sions with the Tribe Aqua­holics Drag­on Boat rac­ing team on Ju­ly 27.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, White said it was im­por­tant that the mem­bers fol­lowed the spe­cif­ic di­etary guide­lines to be suc­cess­ful at their work­outs.

He said all par­tic­i­pants had been ad­vised to keep their caloric in­take high enough to sus­tain their work­outs. They were al­so taught about bal­anc­ing meals and un­der­stand­ing when and what to eat.

"Be­fore they work out they must en­sure they eat car­bo­hy­drates, that helps with en­durance and af­ter work­outs they must eat pro­tein to help in re­pair­ing the mus­cles," ex­plained White.

He added, the mem­bers have al­so been taught to eat sev­er­al small meals through­out the day; every three to four hours. This is to en­sure they have enough en­er­gy to go through an en­tire work­out and the re­cov­ery pe­ri­od. He al­so ad­vised that al­co­hol con­sump­tion should be min­i­mal or not at all.

"If they fail to fol­low these guide­lines it will ham­per their over­all per­for­mance. You sim­ply won't get the best out of your train­ing."

White said, how­ev­er, he was hap­py to say that the ma­jor­i­ty of the team was do­ing ex­treme­ly well, even some of the new mem­bers who were in­ex­pe­ri­enced have man­aged to im­press him.

"I was re­al­ly wor­ried when we start­ed train­ing three months ago that some of the team mem­bers from last year might not have been keep­ing up their fit­ness lev­els, but I was re­al­ly im­pressed that they ac­tu­al­ly were, be­cause they fell right back in­to the train­ing quite eas­i­ly. We even had a few mem­bers who dropped out last year, re­turned this time and have gone all the way. So over­all I would say we have a pret­ty good team."

About Hard­core

Ac­cord­ing to their web­site, Hard­core Caribbean is the re­gion's "biggest and bad­dest ad­ven­ture chal­lenge."

It start­ed in 2012, and the Trinidad leg is fea­tured on the ES­PN sports net­work.

Par­tic­i­pants face over 20 wa­ter and land-based mil­i­tary-style ob­sta­cles over a course that's five miles long.

This year the event's or­gan­is­ers have de­cid­ed to keep the chal­lenge open, mak­ing it more of a per­son­al chal­lenge than a com­pe­ti­tion.

There is a Ja­maica leg which takes place on Oc­to­ber 4 in Ja­maica.

For more in­for­ma­tion, vis­it the site at www.hard­core­caribbean.com.

GML Hard­core Team

Jody White -Train­er

Urias Lessey

Ria Ram­a­bal­ly

Samp­son Nan­ton

Ste­fan Williams

Bernadette Mil­lien

To­va Sat­nar­ine

Shamelia Thomas

Akeisha Fran­cis

Hema Ramkisson

Rosan­na Ro­driguez

Soyi­ni Chase

Kwa­mi Turpin

Darol Smart

Joanne Stephens

Antony Bobb

Mar­lon Tay­lor

Jody White

Sher­win Arthur

Bran­don Ram­per­sad

Joel Wal­lace

Tim­o­thy Mo­hammed

Ra­mon Camps

Dion Ed­wards

Miguel Rouse

Jah­meela Brown

Chester Sam­bra­no


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