Last week I was signed up to ‘the best workout in the world’
by a 'friend'- I joke, I still love her kind of. My plan to attend Barry’s Bootcamp was met with ‘that’s just for
athletes and personal trainers’ and ‘my friend threw up and hid in the toilet
until the end’ from colleagues- lovely, very reassuring. The day before D day or should I say B day the panic really set
in and I began frantically googling exactly what to expect, what should I eat?
What should I wear? Should I have trained for this? The website didn’t really
ease my fear with promises of being pushed to my limits and burning up to 1000
calories. I felt sick and shaky thinking about it all day. Google had told me
to drink lots of water and eat bananas so that’s what I did (amongst other
various unnecessary carb loading). Please bear in mind my fitness level is
pretty much at I can jog for 20 seconds and then I get a stitch. Each day has a
different focus at Barry’s, Tuesday was legs and bums. I was quite reassured by
this, they can’t make you work out your legs that hard if you have to run on
them right? Oh I was not right.
So finally the time arrived. From the minute I walked in
through the doors, which by the way themselves are pretty scary- it’s like
walking into a dungeon aptly labelled with the sign ‘down to hell so you look
like heaven’. Well whilst I want to look like a goddess, I am absolutely not ready
for hell just yet. On arrival at the reception desk I couldn’t help blurting
out to everyone in earshot just how much of a beginner I was in the hope they
would go easy on me. We checked in and I grabbed my towel and loaded up on deodorant
and extra hair pins. My instructor invited the newbies in for a quick
induction, he asked if I was okay I replied honestly ‘no I am not’. He explained
how to get on and off the treadmill safely, even made us turn it to 0.5 and go
for a little very, very slow walk whilst he was talking. I started to panic
about the valuable fitness and energy he was expending on my behalf and did my
best to turn it off again as soon as possible. He didn’t look very impressed
with me so far.
When you sign in you are awarded a number which corresponds
to the floor space and treadmill you will be on. Ever the non-dramatic optimist,
I took my place murmuring to my friend I can’t believe I’m here I can’t do this
over and over again. We were told to pick up various weights ‘5kg for ladies’ I
picked up the 3kg. I looked around the room, trying my best to decipher who in
here could possibly be as unfit as me- my allies. No one looked back at me,
staring ahead into the highly flattering mirrors and concentrating on what lay
ahead for us. The red lights shine, a colour associated with danger. I thought
to myself ‘perhaps my rush of adrenaline and fear will make me into an athlete...
I mean they do say people suddenly can climb a tree or whatever if there’s a
bear around right?’ I started on the floor which I was rather happy about, I
could suss out the treadmills before actually having to get on one. Wrong again, I would be crawling to the treadmill.
The music started blaring and the instructor expertly
organised the ‘tredders’ and floor. Tredders were running at some horrifying
speed and we were doing weighted squats. It had started, there was no getting
out now. The door swung shut. This was my prison for the next hour. The class
is basically made up of 15 minutes on the floor, 15 minutes tread and then
switching (although I have heard rumours of something called a dirty thirty). I
started out with a few weighted squats and other various kicky things I don’t know
the name of. I was feeling ok and sort of thinking I didn’t know what the fuss
was all about. Then we started the 2 minutes of jump squats. My legs turned to jelly,
my heart was bouncing about in my chest and I had that awful breath caught in
your chest feeling that I got during the bleep test at school. Ummm I’m a
celebrity get me out of here? We then got told to ‘recover’. Great I thought
just what I need, nice little swig of water, maybe a shoulder rub, meditation?
I looked over at my friend who was heading over to her sweat drenched numbered
treadmill. He hadn’t just said recover at all, he had said RE cover and that
meant switch with my poor out of breath treadmill counterpart. They looked
relieved, I most definitely was not.
The running options are shouted out to you in different
numbers 7, 8, 9 type vibes meaning beginners run at 7, intermediate 8, superhuman
9. I ran at 4.8 and it killed me. But, I didn’t get in trouble and I did go up
a little when I was told to and I was dripping in sweat, couldn’t feel my legs,
felt like I might pass out and at my maximum. Thankfully, I think when they see
this they just think ‘poor unfit soul’ and recognise you’re doing your best.
With every ‘re cover’ I thought I can’t go on, but I also did. On my final run
when I was told to give it everything I had I managed to get up to 7. I did the
cool down with the lights on lying back on my treadmill. I looked up at the
ceiling as if it was the night sky, feeling rather profound I thought to myself
I actually did it. I hobbled out and booked myself into the same class next
week. I sat on the tube home sweating into my coat wondering why I felt the need
to torture myself again on some weird euphoric high.
Little update: My second class went a lot better, I still
feel the fear but cutting out the unknown made it a lot more of an enjoyable
experience and hey who knows I might finally get fit.
