Korean War gives Don Wildman perspective on life

Creditors contacted him about taking over eight clubs in Chicago. Soon he was buying big and small chains in other cities, always careful to maintain their separate identities to avoid the system-wide scandals that plagued the fitness business. Driving traffic with ads featuring celebrities such as Raquel Welch, he rode the fitness and racquetball wave to ownership of 17 chains nationwide under the umbrella of his Health and Tennis Corp. By 1993, when he retired from running Bally's, the company that had bought him out a decade before, there were 400 clubs, the most in the country.

All the while, Wildman kept working out. His time crunch, and the advent of multi-station weight machines in the '60s and '70s, led him to clear messy barbells off the floor and experiment with what became known as "circuit training," rapidly moving from one exercise to another.

"I think I invented circuit training because I had to -- I didn't have the time to rest. You work one muscle group, then the opposing group -- and you're done in half the time." Circuit training was a huge hit -- especially with women, who flooded into his clubs. Training at 6 a.m. every day, Wildman built up to 237 pounds at age 37, leaving him time to pursue his big hobby, sailboat racing.

In 1982, the morning after Wildman and his crew of 20 became the first to win all three of the Chicago Yacht Club's famous Mackinac races in one season, a Fortune magazine writer asked him what was next. Drunk on champagne, Wildman remembered something about a new sport he'd recently seen on TV, and blurted, "I might do that Ironman."

"That ended up in the article," he said. "Now, I had to do it."

So he did. Nine times.

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