Meet Michael Adeniran AKA The Urban Challenger
Michael Adeniran, also known as The Urban Challenger, has been inspiring his online community to their fitness goals for the last few years. With thousands of followers on Instagram, The Urban Challenger gives his audience an insight into his training, his ultra-running and his love of obstacle course races. He is also a NuroKor ambassador and a big advocate of electronic therapy devices for sports and muscle recovery.
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Tell us more about your persona, The Urban Challenger? How did it all come about? I created The Urban Challenger firstly because of my love for constantly pushing myself and wanting to find my limits. Secondly to help others push past their perceived limits and try new and adventurous stuff. That was the initial idea. Since then, a great community has grown around the content I create, by just being an everyday guy who loves a challenge! How did you get into Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) and what do you love about it? My wife was given the chance to run an OCR event and actually invited me to my very first obstacle race. I absolutely loved it! Since then, I keep entering different races, making the challenge tougher each time. They challenge you in a different way each time and there is always space to improve. How do you manage to juggle a young family and training for huge events like ultra-marathons and OCR? By using every ounce of my day to the fullest and sticking to a schedule so that my wife knows when/where/how long I will be training. Compromise and planning go a long way. Plus working out early or really late.  What does a normal day look like for you? On a weekday I wake up at 5:30/6am and get my run in which usually lasts for an hour. Then get home ready for work. On strength and conditioning days, I will fit that in during lunch time also. I then finish work at 5pm and do a lot of stretching/yoga to try to improve my mobility, flexibility and recovery. At weekends I will usually spend 2-3 hours training, all depending on the training block. How have your goals changed for 2021 with the pandemic? What is up next for you? My goals in 2021 so far have been a lot less event focused, and more skill based. As I massively increased my running in 2020, I have more Ultra Running and Ultra OCR goals in the calendar now. I have taken on some tough challenges for 2021, as I felt this was missing from my 2020. What are your long-term goals? Long term goals are to take on an IronMan event as I believe that is the pinnacle of challenges. The fact that I need a lot of improvement in cycling and swimming gives me even more incentive to go hard during training and leave my comfort zone. When it comes to The Urban Challenger, I want to keep introducing people to adventures sports and OCR and building a community around it. What is your proudest moment from your career? Completing the Spartan Endurance Trifecta in 2018. This comprised of a 4-hour endurance event, a 12-hour endurance event and a Spartan ultra. It is my proudest moment to date finishing all three events! What injuries have you had and how did/do they affect you? In 2017 I suffered a quite serious ankle injury that stopped me from running for around four months. I didn’t want to completely stop working out so I adjusted my programme and focused on what I could do and strengthening my ankle until it was right to run again. Sometimes taking a few months off for the benefit of the rest of your running career is always worth it. It made me really focus on making the most of my training. How does NuroKor help your recovery? NuroKor allows me to focus on certain areas that are sore and need more attention. This then allows me to speed up my recovery so I can continue to train on a busy schedule. Plus, with the various pieces of NuroKor equipment such as the KorBand, I can focus on various areas of my body no matter where the injury. Where do you use NuroKor? I mostly use the NuroKor mitouch on my legs as I have had IT band issues in the past and with the amount of running I do, the bioelectronic system feels great. Also, I use the KorBand on my lower back as lifting a heavy baby often gives me back pains.  If you weren't an athlete, what would you be doing? I would definitely be a coach as I like helping people work towards their fitness goals and overcome any obstacles they have. You can follow The Urban Challenger and his training on Instagram @theurbanchallenger |
