NEIL JENSEN AND CLAIRE O’NEILL ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE ONE-TWO PUNCH OF DBDB AND HYROX TO BE FABULOUS AT 50+. ELIZABETH KERR REPORTS
Neil Jensen and Claire O’Neill are easy to spot among those taking an afternoon caffeine shot at Uncle Russ at DB North Plaza. They’re obviously not the uniformed kids cutting class, and it’s unlikely they’re the solo sippers glued to a laptop screen, earbuds firmly in place. No, they’re the duo sitting on the patio kitted out in athletic gear. Not athleisure, mind, proper running shorts and shirts. They’ve been posing for photographs on DB North Pitch and they’re dressed for the part. Neil and Claire are 50+ HYROX champs, and they’re getting ready to defend their titles.
DB LIVING
“We actually got mucky on the photoshoot. We ended up getting a tire out and flipping i t over. I t was full of water. I t wasn’t intentional, but there you go.” Neil opens with a cheeky grin. The two banter back and forth about training in Hong Kong’s blazing heat – “Seriously, the heat never bothers me. But in winter, it’s hard work and i t reminds me why I’m here and not in the UK,” cracks Neil – and going back to work after a lengthy hiatus, which Claire is considering: “I’m not the start my own business type, so I’m in the process of reassessing my CV,” she says. “I’ve been helping out at schools, done a bit of supply teaching, and now I’m leading the parents’ committee so that helps. But i t’s been 15 years. It’s a challenge.”
Neil and Claire took similar paths to DB: both had friends who lived here at the time they were relocating, Neil just about 20 years ago from Dubai and Claire from Edinburgh in 2016. Neil arrived with a two-year-old and a four-year-old, stayed in DB during an orientation visit and has lived there ever since. Following a divorce and founding his own mortgage brokerage, he met the woman who would become his second wife in DB.
A lawyer by trade, Claire came to Hong Kong when her husband was transferred. “We thought we were coming for two to three years, and here we are. Still here. Different job,” she quips. “We started with five weeks in the Auberge, and then moved into the apartment we’re still in. I’m not a creature of change.” But she admits there’s no place she’d rather live.
“It’s great socially. I’m three minutes from Tiger’s Head. I’m literally in the middle of mountains in about three minutes. I t’s not for everybody, but i t’s brilliant if you’ve got kids. I can see if you’re in your 20s not wanting to be so far from Central but from about 30 onwards, and particularly for young families and people like me, in their 50s, you get the best of both worlds.”
DBDB TRAINING
DB residents of over a decade, Claire and Neil are also elite HYROX athletes. For the uninitiated, the all-indoor running-and-workout-station combo got off the ground in 2017, and in some ways can be seen as a companion to the more high-profile Ironman, CrossFit or Spartan races. Already a hit in Europe and North America, HYROX started with personal fitness tests in Asia as a way to gain traction.
To find out how Neil (and his partner in HYROX Trevor Smith) placed first among over-50s at the first HYROX race in Hong Kong in 2023 (clocking in at 1:21:35) and Claire came in almost 15 minutes ahead of second place (with a time of 1:28:49) in the women’s 50-54 category, you have to rewind to COVID. The pair met at Andrew Tasker’s DBDB – alias Discovery Bay Dad Bods, find them on Facebook – a lockdown inspired workout group where they both opted into the 7am session. For HYROX, the idea was to affiliate with gyms but the HYROX Hong Kong director, Richard Cowley, was friendly with Andrew, and so DBDB was dubbed a “social club” and went from there.
“I saw a friend’s husband, and I said, ‘Oh, you’re in good shape.’ And he said ‘I go to DB DadBods.’ That was the first time it was planted in my mind. I think it was one of those New Year’s resolutions,” recalls Neil. Remarried and father to a seven-year-old, Neil admits to thinking he was fairly fit – until he started going to regular DBDB workouts.
Neil made his way to HYROX at the prodding of 71-year-old DB HYROXer Jeff Booth, and once he did, he realised it would be a “real game-changer… I couldn’t wing it in terms of just turning up and doing it. Unlike football, you have to train.” He pauses. “My greatest fear wasn’t the race, it was actually getting to the start line.”
Originally a trail runner, Claire came to DBDB from Ladies Who Lift of DB (find them on Instagram) because she was looking for a more comprehensive fitness routine that she could work around her own sons, now 11 and 15. She made the leap to HYROX with a personal fitness trainer after returning from Belfast post-COVID. Claire, like Neil, qualified for the HYROX Worlds in Nice this past May (“Who doesn’t want to go to the south of France?”) but she’s probably skipping the regional races in Singapore and Korea ahead of the HYROX Asian Open Championships in Hong Kong this November at AsiaWorld-Expo. She’s actually worried a bum leg is going to keep her out of the competition, but she hasn’t given it a hard ‘No’.
Whether they make their way to the Asian Open podium or not is almost irrelevant. Neil and Claire are both confident that without their DBDB training, they’d never have made it through HYROX, never mind winning their respective categories on hometurf. “Andrew has a different session every day, so your body’s challenged every day. Then there’s the social gatherings and stuff, and people are really nice,” says Neil. “Andrew hasn’t paid us to say that. Has he?”
“Not yet,” jokes Claire.
DBDB and HYROX training is part of everyday life now. “I have to show up,” Neil finishes. “I’ve got a seven-year-old. I’ve always been competitive, but I don’t want to be that dad, with the big belly and the drink in his hand. I need to live longer.” Claire is a little more magnanimous. “For me it’s more about having the kids watch, and I do think it’s great for them to see. I t’s nice to have, you know, a badass for a mom.”