My month of lung-busting bootcamps

DAY ONE, MID-JULYIt's the Monday following a boozy weekend and the sun is shining. After a rush of blood to the head, I decide to join one of the dozens of fitness bootcamps running in Dublin parks in what I suspect will turn out to be a ridiculously optimistic attempt to convert my body from a brewery to a temple.

I pay a not-too-shabby €155 for 16 classes over eight weeks with Bootcamp Ireland and the New Me resolves to start the drive towards fitness immediately. By 6pm, the Old Me is back in the driving seat and very, very tired. So I give my first class a skip, promising myself I will start on Wednesday. Definitely. No messing.

DAY TWO

It’s raining. Seriously? Who does bootcamp in the rain? Crazy people, that’s who.

DAY THREE, LATE-JULY

Okay, no more messing. I’ve paid my money and am going to go tonight if it kills me, which right now seems horribly likely. Minutes before my debut in a mucky park on Dublin’s northside, I’m stung by a massive wasp. If there was ever a genuine reason not to go to bootcamp, a potentially lethal wasp sting is it. In my heart of course, I know this is the lamest of excuses but the summer sun of a week ago has given way to cold greyness and the whole notion of bootcamp is looking distinctly unappealing. My €155 investment, meanwhile, is looking a little unwise.

DAY FOUR

Amazing. I actually make it to Fairview Park along with 25 other bootcampers of varying shapes and sizes. Within minutes, I’m wishing I’d stayed at home. A man with tightly cropped hair and a cross look on his face is shouting at me. As he goes through his plan for our hour-long programme, he warns us that every time he catches anyone with their hands on their hips or their arms folded he is going to make us all do 10 press-ups by way of punishment.

He’s not lying and within 10 minutes, I’m personally responsible for everyone doing 90 press-ups. My classmates, around 80 per cent of whom are women, are glowering at me. It’s just a little awkward.

I have forgotten to bring water – a schoolboy error when it comes to bootcamp – and am dying of thirst. Obviously, I can’t ask anyone for a sip of their water because of all the push-ups I have just made them do, but just as I am about to suck the evening dew off the grass, a good Samaritan offers to share her bottle with me. She becomes my new best friend.

DAY FIVE, EARLY-AUGUST

There is no getting away from the fact that we bootcampers look absolutely ridiculous. The work-outs are styled as “military”, but with all the skipping, high-kicking and air-punching, it’s a lot more Broadway musical than SAS assault course. The Good Samaritan aside, I have developed an irrational dislike of my fellow classmates. The cool kids do not, I now realise, go to bootcamp. They’re too busy having barbecues and craic tonight, I suspect.

There are far too many people wearing T-shirts with show-off slogans advertising the fact that they've completed some class of gruelling marathon or other feat of endurance; there are fitness nerds who spend the class talking to teacher about how much exercise they've already done this week; there are jokers who are forever shouting deeply unfunny one-liners at no one in particular; and there's one frankly mental woman who spends her time quoting lines from Friends. Friends? In 2011! That's mad Ted.

And then there’s a grumpy loner who stands on the periphery of the group, scowling. That’s me, obviously.

DAY SIX

Every bootcamp trainer uses different methods to increase our fitness levels. Some go for endless circuits of abdominal crunches, push-ups and medicine balls interspersed with lung-busting sprints. Others favour relay races, shorter circuits, interspersed with lung-busting sprints. They’re all big into their lung-busting sprints. It makes sense. If you’re just jogging at your own pace or going through circuits in the gym on your own, there is no incentive to really push yourself with sprints. The instructors provide that incentive. Some shout and swear like dockers while others are calmer but still make us work very hard. The variety is excellent and no one has any idea what to expect from week to week.

DAY SEVEN, MID-AUGUST

It is lashing rain but in a worrying sign that bootcamp addiction might be kicking in, I don’t even consider not going. The rain has a nice cooling affect and the miserable conditions appeal to the masochist within. Tonight’s trainer has us sprinting up a hill over and over and over again. The class flies by almost as fast as the sprints, and I hobble home.

DAY EIGHT

Hats off to Bootcamp Ireland for coming up with such effective business model. The classes take place in (free) public spaces and very little equipment is used, so overheads are minimal. Mostly, it’s about running fast and slow, doing push-ups and star jumps and burpees. The burpees are the worst. They sound faintly comical and kind of fun. They are not fun. And just 40 seconds of leaping and squatting like a loon has me close to cardiac arrest.

DAY NINE, LATE-AUGUST

There’s a pleasingly competitive edge to bootcamp. The trick is to pick someone each week and aim to beat them in every exercise. I make a massive mistake tonight and pick the fittest man in the world as my challenger. By the end of the class I’m in bits and have not beaten him in a single sprint. I crawl out of the park as he cycles off infuriatingly quickly and oblivious to my shame.

DAY 10

It actually works, this bootcamp lark. You can’t really slack off – well you can, but you look ridiculous – and eventually the effort becomes enjoyable. The trainers are nowhere near as shouty as I’d been led to believe.

I find gyms are spirit-crushingly dull, while the loneliness of the long-distance run is off-putting and it’s far too easy to find excuses not to go. Not everyone can find a team sport to suit them.

This is why Bootcamps have grown so popular here. There is a sense of collegiality, the times are strictly defined, the work-outs pleasingly tough yet comparatively brief and after just seven classes of the 16-class course, I feel better. My body may not be a temple but it is certainly a more efficient and streamlined brewery.

I fully intend to see out my final three weeks of bootcamps, and who knows, I might even continue it into the winter. Although that may be wildly optimistic.