One of the coolest things about “Trainer Games” for Dan Holguin, the Kalispell resident who competed in the reality show competition, was what he was able to do after it wrapped last May. 

“A couple months later, I ran the Crazy Mountain 100,” Holguin said this week. “A race I’d been attempting for the previous two years. Last year, I actually got it done. It was a good year, athletically.” 

We won’t be a spoiler for the show, which aired its sixth and final episode last week and can be watched on both Amazon Prime and YouTube; suffice it to say Holguin didn’t get the $250,000 IFit contract that went to the winner. 

“The silver lining is that although I didn’t finish first, I still was offered a substantial contract to be an IFit trainer as well,” he said. “Which was unexpected and nice.” 

Holguin is a 2004 Flathead High graduate who wrestled and played football for the Braves and also competed in high school rodeo: He competed in the sport at Lamar Community College in Colorado. 

“After that I finally put on some size on and in 2008, I played football for Cerritos College in the Los Angeles area,” he said.  

Holguin weighs 200 pounds these days, down from a high (or low) point where he had a lot of extra weight, post-college. The extra pounds went away as he got into training, much of it outdoors: endurance running, swimming, climbing. Now a 39-year-old trainer in Kalispell, he competed in American Ninja Warrior for about five years. 

“So yeah, I’ve had to stay in shape,” he said. 

Fast forward to last spring, and Holguin hopped a plan to Seattle, then Dubai, then the island nation of Mauritius, located to the east of Madagascar. He and nine other men and women competed; they were eliminated, one and two at a time, after races that involved paddle boards, ziplines and more. And Holguin did good. 

“As you get older you tend to question if your best days as an athlete are behind you,” he said. “I think that kind of creeped into my head a little bit. It was great going out there and competing, and competing against young kids there, competing at a thigh level, and staying within my integrity. If you watch the show you’ll see what I mean.” 

There was a team aspect to the “Trainer Games,” and aside from each contestant being about 80 times tougher than me, I won’t spoil any more. The married father of one (Gabriela is a senior at Glacier) was happy how it turned out how he finished against “a bunch of kids,” even if he didn’t eliminate them all.  

“I’m nearly 40 but I still have a lot to give and that was a nice reminder that I continue to compete at a high level,” he said. “Those things do actually come to you, if you keep swinging the axe, I guess.” 

Reach Fritz at 406-758-4463 or at [email protected].