Another week, another “mini”-challenge, only this one turns out to be not so mini after all, and leads to a very interesting result!

But before we begin, just a friendly note: While I appreciate that many of you enjoy these recaps, I must request that you not reproduce them in their entirety elsewhere on the internet. I put a great deal of work into each one and while I don’t mind if you would like to place an excerpt on your site/blog/forum, please keep it to a few paragraphs at most and provide a link to my website for people to read the rest. Thankyou.
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As always, I will not use emails provided in that fashion to spam you, nor divulge them to third parties, etc etc, yada yada yada…

Oh and I almost forgot – the Week 2 video diaries are now up on the official website! Click here to go to that page!
How they managed to get all that up and still not get around to fading out Kelly’s face from the contestant navigation is anyone’s guess…

Anyway, on with the show!

Shannan’s decided to get his team on a new diet, really high protein, really low fat, just enough low-GI carbs to keep their energy up. They’re not looking to build lots of big muscles, they’re looking to lose weight.
They now have a new motto: “Eat like athletes, train like athletes, rest like athletes and recover like athletes.”
“Today was about pushing heart rates to the limit!”

Gerard said that everyone had the fear of God going through them!

Shannan is absolutely caning them today, pushing them constantly to just keep going and going and going, pushing their heart rates up to 180bpm. At their first break, Gerard starts dry heaving, eventually hanging his head out the window and heaving some more.

In the weigh-in, Damien’s loss of 2.2kg was just not enough, Shannan says. If he wants to go on and win the show, he’s going to have to lift the intensity.
Shannan has Damien running back and forth up the gym, eventually Damien says he can’t do anymore, he gets to the end of a lap and Shannan is telling him two more, but Damien is adamant he can’t, eventually falling over backwards. Shannan tells him that he’s sure he had two more in him and he’s disappointed that Damien didn’t finish it out.
That was what Damien needed, he didn’t want to be told he’d let Shannan down, so he got back up and did not two more laps, but six more. Shannan was well pleased with him.

Michelle has decided to take her team out to the basketball courts again today, but for more of a regular training session, just out in the open air for a change. Situps on the court, followed by some running around cones.
Greg tells us that when he was younger he played for an all Australian grid iron team and he was well muscled and fit and so on… Then the first year he was married, he put on 32kg, and it was all downhill from there.
32kg sounds like an awfully skinny wife, but women never like to be told their weight so maybe he’s just erring on the side of caution to avoid later drama.
Michelle is pleased with Greg, and Greg is hoping he’ll be able to keep it up and get back to his old level of fitness once more.

And now… the challenge!
It is, indeed, a marathon “race”. Treadmills out on the lawn of the mansion.
Ajay tells them to look over at some of their friends they’ve made in the last few weeks. Gerard looks over and thinks, “They’re not our friends!”

There’s 6 of them out on the drive, 3 for blue, 3 for red.
Each treadmill is set at 8km/h.
The teams are competing for the right to decide which team gets… THE COMMANDO!
Honestly, I can’t see either side winning being a victory for viewers. None of them should be going anywhere without underpants just yet.

“The commando can be viewed as either a prize, or a punishment.” – Ajay

The “invididual” winner of the challenge will also receive a “Cardio Gym”, a piece of gym equipment valued at $3,500. Looks very fancy, I’d be worried I’d break it.

The teams have one minute to decide which three of their number will be competing.
Blue: Mel, Michael and Gerard
Red: Courtney, Greg and Pati

“Doesn’t really matter what the prize is, or the situation, Blue team wants to win!” – Jules

“Everyone else could power-walk except me and Gerard, we have shorter legs than everyone else!” – Pati

Not long after starting, “it’s just too fast!” – Gerard
All the Blues try to encourage him but he hopped off at the 10min 56secs mark.

Pati started to have trouble with her legs a while after Gerard quit, they started going numb and she started to have trouble breathing. She made it to 26mins 5secs, which is very impressive.

So it’s down to two blues, two reds.
And they’re still going after an hour! Which draws a round of applause from everyone on both teams.
“I could go all night long, baby!” – Greg

And the trash talking begins!
“Why am I the only one jogging?” – Courtney
“It’s your little legs mate!” – Michael

“Does it help when you put your hands down like that Courtney?” – Michael
“Does it help when you don’t open your mouth?” – Courtney
Advantage: Michael!
Courtney tries again by flipping him the double birds, Michael just laughs.

Courtney really badly wanted to beat Michael, but he just couldn’t do it
1hr 4mins 33secs in the end.
And Michael gives him the thumbs up and congratulates him on doing so well.

“This isn’t a strength exercise, it’s a stubborn exercise!” – Greg
Greg’s now alone against Mel and Michael on the Blue team.
“Mel is an Energizer bunny, she just keeps going and going and going!” – Michael

1hr 34mins 56secs and Mel gives up… sort of. She accidentally hit the stop button when putting her hand down. Ooops!

“Once you come off there, I’m going to do another 5 minutes, just for the sake of it!” – Greg
“I’d rather die than let you win!” – Greg

Michael’s looking stronger in the face, but he looks to be having troubles with his back. Will he win? Find out after the ad break maybe? How many ads do we need in here anyway?

1hr 45mins 50secs after the ad break and Greg is singing the Ole-y soccer song thing.
Greg’s using his family as motivation to stick in there.
2 hours!

After the two hour mark, the “rules” changed, no more holding onto the treadmill, walking or running or getting off.
Michael starts doing it real hard as soon as that happens. A short while afterwards he’s starting to stagger and about to give up and Greg pipes up, “Nah, come on mate, stick with it, you’ve got the rhythm, come on!”
But no, Michael hops off at 2hrs 3mins 53secs!

And true to his word, Greg does the extra 5 minutes he said he’d do! Not only that, he did the last 30secs at a sprint, 20km/h.
Everyone’s very impressed by Greg’s effort… And then Courtney has to stick his nose in and say it opened a lot of people’s eyes to how much of a threat Greg is and how much trouble that might cause for Courtney later in the game.
He just ran for more than 2 hours to win you the damn challenge and that’s all you can think about?!

So now Red has 30 seconds to decide if they want The Commando.
Marty says that anything that helps them with cardio and fitness and so on has got to be a good thing… Greg says yeah, anything for calves or ankles or… I think he’s feeling the burn now!
Red will need to be up at 6am to meet The Commando.

Tomorrow on The Biggest Loser, Red looks to be off doing a military style boot camp type of training regimen with the badass Commando guy.
And we see a short section of the confrontation from the various ads we’ve seen, and it’s Marty v The Commando. Oh dear!
We also get teased with that delicious looking chocolate fountain again! Damien seems to be having a look at the fountain up close… or was he taking a bite? We’ll see!