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I tried a £5,000-a-year ‘ultra-sporting club’ for a month - but was it worth it?
When the results were revealed after thirty days of training, it was almost unbelievable
When an announcement dropped into my inbox heralding the ‘first ultra-sporting member’s club’ I raised an eyebrow.
Newly launched Somerton Sporting Club claimed to offer ‘unprecedented access to sport and wellness experiences,’ from rowing sessions with Great Britain’s most decorated athlete, Helen Glover, to strength and conditioning with the All Black’s head coach.
Usually such illustrious names are attached to one-off inspirational events, which is all very well, but what about the long haul? I am in search of fitness experiences that go deeper - the ones that can actually change your life - so I was intrigued by Somerton’s long-term proposition.
At £5,000 a year just to be on the books, membership is aimed at the few: namely time-poor, cash-rich executives and CEOs. The service it provides, I am told, is genuinely unique and fully bespoke. It is not a physical space, but a body of experts primed to facilitate success in your choice of over 60 different sports, by allowing you access to a pool of over 70 elite coaches, 240 professional athletes and five-star venues.
“Somerton has spent the last 15 months developing relationships with athletes, coaches and sporting venues that would be impossible to get elsewhere, ensuring members receive access to the otherwise ‘unobtainable’,” says Ceri Roberts, Head of Sports Planning.
As a former elite triathlete, I know the impact that good and bad relationships with exercise can have on your life. More than anything, I know it takes a multi-pronged attack on the mind, body and lifestyle to make any long-lasting change.
So, I polished up my bike and dusted off my running shoes to trial membership for one month. My challenge to Somerton? Help reignite my passion for triathlon by providing an elite experience beyond what’s available anywhere else. This is what happened...
First steps
After an initial consultation, members are matched with the appropriate experts to manage their progression. This can include anyone from coaches to nutritionists and lifestyle aides. Somerton liaises directly with members, or their assistants, to ensure needs are met wherever they are in the world, however often they travel. All they have to do is turn up.
I was paired with one of the most important coaches in the sport of triathlon - to the point that his name must be kept secret in this article. I can, however, divulge that he is the head coach for one of the world’s best national teams, responsible for coaching athletes to the Olympic podium. Given his day job, our relationship was to be a long distance one - but I was thrilled to be working with one of the world’s best. He only coaches privately through Somerton.
Before getting started, a box arrived at my door containing customised cycling clothing from HUUB and a Garmin watch from Sigma Sports. The team had clearly been listening as I rambled on about my old kit (I quit the sport ten years ago) and I appreciated this boost to help me get started.
Establishing goals
Somerton bravely operates on goals-based training cycles so members have a constant track on how far they have come.
“There is no other member’s club or fitness club that is held accountable for its members’ progress and development,” says Roberts. “We organise continuous feedback loops, arrange sessions globally and allow members 24/7 access to their sports planners. This level of service is exclusive to Somerton.”
You can’t argue with science, so to help set up achievable goals I was packed off to the Cotswolds for a day of blood lactate testing. This is a method used to gauge endurance fitness by determining the level of lactic acid in your blood when exercising at various difficulties and thus establishing actual capacities. The idea is to increase those capacities over time.
The experts of Col du Peuch - which offers exclusive training camps for athletes - were assigned to test me. With an original property in the Dordogne, the company’s newer Cotswolds outpost is nestled in an estate with access to country roads, swimming ponds, gyms, pools and top of the range training equipment. It’s often block-booked for pro teams such as the Renault F1 Academy, but availability has been carved out for Somerton.
I was in the care of performance director Peter Webster and triathlon coach Callum Hughes for the day. The setup is professional and sleek, and reminded me of my days on training camps in Scotland - although this version was much more luxurious and less hazardous than the old bunkhouse in Aberfeldy, where many years ago I endured ten stitches in my knee.
Here, I was put through a health check; bike and run lactate tests; a Retül bike fit; a fitness test; and video swim analysis. I finished the day exhausted, but swiftly back in my former elite mindset. Both Webster and Hughes know their stuff, and made me feel welcome as I took my first steps back into the sport. I left armed with the sort of hard data that just isn’t available for most punters.
The training
Training cycles are planned a month in advance, and mine were fed to me using the app Training Peaks. This can be rigged up to training technology, like watches and heart rate monitors, so your coach can track your exact statistics.
My coach and I had initial Facetime meetings to discuss the testing results and come up with a training plan that was manageable around work and a trip to Arizona that month. It is in my nature to pack as much in as possible, but he did a sound job of curbing my enthusiasm, explaining that the month’s focus was to develop a solid baseline and small improvements - another sign that Somerton is focused on the long-term goals. I obliged.
My plan took in 12 to 14-hour training weeks, with around two sessions per day and one rest day per week. For a less experienced member, this would be drastically less intense. I had initially been anxious to see how being coached from a distance would work, but I was quickly proved wrong. The coach was available constantly over Whatsapp or on the phone and was able to make changes at the last minute. Plus, the perks of being mentored by someone of this calibre far outweigh proximity.
Week one was a shock to the system, and the plan was designed to allow for that. Incorporating group swim sessions with Fiona Ford alongside technique-focused runs, light bike sessions, and regular strength and conditioning, I was able to gain a lot of training hours with minimal stress to the body. The week finished with a max-out five kilometre ParkRun, which hurt like hell but was another good measure of fitness. I ran it in just over 22 minutes - a good three minutes slower than ten years ago, but something to work on.
By week three, when I headed out to Arizona, I was already feeling stronger, leaner and fitter. My body was also starting to fatigue a little, especially given the long flight. The coach called me before and after, adapting my training to deal with altitude in the city of Flagstaff and heat in Scottsdale, culminating in a 50-mile bike race around Tucson. Three weeks earlier, my 22-minute effort had hit me hard - now I was able to race abroad, at altitude for two and a half hours and finish strong.
Coming into the finish line, my emotions got the better of me; I was starting to get a real kick out of training once more. In getting there, I had already been supported so fully and with so much passion, I'd venture that it's priceless.
The facilities
Back in London, it wasn’t all loops of Richmond park in the winter frost. Somerton has links with high end member’s clubs and hotels around London, such as Ten Trinity Square and The Lanesborough, both of which have luxurious gyms and spas.
I spent time at the Lanesborough, getting miles in on the Wattbike, recovering in the hydrotherapy pool and hot-footing it back to work with an Americano or juice served by the spa butler. Alongside the well-equipped gym and spa facilities, treatments are also on offer from coveted beauty brands like ila, Tata Harper and La Prairie. From the marble-clad changing rooms to the impressive range of equipment, it provided extra motivation to keep going.
The results
The plan finished off with an easier week ahead of a second round of testing. Hitting goals may be what Somerton is all about, but I was aware how difficult it is to see any results in endurance sport over a month - small gains was what we were going for.
Another day was spent going as fast as I could at Col de Peuch - and I finished a hyperventilating blob on the gym mat. Then the results came through, and it was almost unbelievable.
I had lost 1.2kg in body fat; my cycling threshold (maximum speed over distance) had increased by 43 per cent; and I was running two kilometres per hour faster. These were staggering improvements, not small gains. While I trained hard, there is no doubt that it was the skill of Somerton’s experts and the ease of their logistics and programming that facilitated results like this.
The best thing about the experience is the motivational boost to keep going. Detail-oriented training like you'll get at Somerton can all but guarantee results. A membership here would be perfect for someone looking to try out a new sport; to make serious gains in a sport they already practise; or for someone whose schedule simply makes it feel impossible to workout.
Tempted? Sign up swiftly. In April this year the club is capping membership at 500 to ensure it can provide just as detailed a service to everyone.
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