Why now for Primal

I grew up playing rugby. Schooled in Zimbabwe, then over to the UK for university. By the time I got to Dubai I was coaching it rather than playing, but it was still the thing my week was built around. The training, the mates, the creamy pints of Guinness on a Sunday and paying for it on the Monday.

I’ve always been strong.

So I ended up under a bar. First powerlifting meet was in the RAF (with my brother Shane). After that it was meets in Dubai, then strongman. Yokes, sandbags, tyres, anything heavy and awkward (like me).

The Hurricanes is where I met Matt and Pat, and most of what came next happened there. We’d get people in who’d never touched a sandbag and watch them work out they were stronger than they thought.

The world has moved our way since. Hyrox has been a huge success and the races around it have proved that people want a start line, not just a gym membership. Nobody trains for one thing anymore. Everyone lifts and everyone runs, and they want somewhere to put it.

What I can’t do is run. I’ve tried, have a few half marathons under my belt, but never been very good at it. I’ve done a good few Hyrox (with my sister, Tori) and I enjoy them, but by the third station I know exactly where I stand, and the heavy awkward stuff I spent years on barely counts.

So the movements in Primal are the ones we already loved. Sandbags and a tyre. Carrying something heavy a long way and putting it down properly. The stuff you’d do on a farm, or in a scrum, or shifting furniture when you’re older and still being able to.

There’s running in it, and there has to be. But you don’t need twelve weeks of programming to earn a place on the start line.

Now we’re taking it global, which is a much bigger job than any of us had done before. More than 50,000 people have raced Primal since 2022 and it keeps growing. 12 markets is what we’re going after in 2027. What I don’t know is whether the appetite is as big everywhere as it is here. My instinct says it is, and we’ll find out market by market.

I’d like to still be racing at sixty. That’s most of it.

Simon Seward