Spring into Summer Week Two, Day One: The intensity draws you in- the water breaks are a heavenly blessing

Body Shape Fitness Camp. Picture: Steve Williams. (Image: Archant)

Happily the fridge has become a haven for berries – of all colours and varieties- so the early morning ritual of two handfuls and a glass of water prior to work out has been simplified to perfection.

Body Shape Fitness Camp. Picture: Steve Williams. (Image: Archant)

Timing too, is now down to a fine art – it takes 32 minutes from leaving home to arrival at Ely rugby club for Tim Megginson’s exuberant style of body fitness and persuasion.

I’ve taken his advice – gradually- not to worry about how I compare to others or even to take note of what’s happening around me. The 30 or so active participants this morning will have been there, like me, for their own reasons and all enjoying their own journey.

The pictures offer some clue as to the vigour of these intense, thrice weekly, boot camp style experiences but they tell the story only in part. There’s no rapprochement for being less able than the others, only Tim’s never ending encouragement to perform to your utmost ability.

The intensity of each 40 minute session draws you in- 20 second pauses for water breaks may not seem much to the casual observer but can be a heavenly blessing when you’re counting down the preceding 40 seconds of fast and furious activity.

And so week two is under way, an eclectic group whose numbers change but whose commitment whilst there never quavers.

Some tell me they’ve been attending for a year or so, others for a month or so and some, like me, are new to it.

The binding force is the goals each have set for themselves.

As Tim points out the sessions themselves are only part of the answer to improved fitness and health, the rest coming through changed attitudes, re awakening and fresh awareness of parts of the body which have been in hibernation, and the desire to kick start a future different to the past that, hopefully, has been left behind.