No pain, no gain

EXERCISE, to me, is like an old childhood friend. We used to spend hours together kicking balls around football fields, playing armies in dark woods and hurling ourselves over hills. But our lives have gone in different directions, and whenever we do meet now, it takes all of five minutes to realise we have very little in common.

Going to the fitness camp at Fairfield House was like meeting up with that friend, only to find they have become a radical punk complete with bondage trousers, pierced face and foothigh pink mohawk. In short, my old mate exercise had got extreme, and it would take some work for Fairfield owner Paula Carlington and instructors Paul, Neil and Jacob, to reconcile fitness and me.

I and my six other companions, all of varying degrees of fitness, arrived on the Monday night, and after a welcome from Paula, suffered our fitness tests – proof of how low my fitness has sunk and a stark reminder that no matter how tough the following challenges would be, boy did I need them.

DAY ONE

We were woken at 6am by a handbell ringing outside our bedroom doors, and half an hour later, we bleary-eyed seven found ourselves heading up a hill holding onto a rope with the dry encouragement of Jacob, a former soldier in the Danish Army and now fitness instructor in Weardale.

None of us was allowed to let go of the rope on pain of having to do two burpees (starjumps down to a press-up), and along the way back down through the quarry, he set us challenges, such as reach a certain point in so many minutes, which we breathlessly did.

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs (made with skimmed milk), tomatoes and mushrooms, it was to the studio for boxing, a cardio workout and then kettle bell exercises.

Jacob was unrelenting in pushing us but, surprisingly, despite much groaning, we found we were capable of surpassing our previously conceived limits.

After lunch (a beautiful tomato and chilly soup), it was former bouncer and stand-up comedian Neil’s turn to take us out. His philosophy is simple – make fitness fun. “When you were a kid, you did loads of stuff and never would have thought about it being exercise,”

he says. “So that’s what we will do, except this time no one is going to tell you off for getting muddy.”

Which is just as well as we crossed streams, scaled a waterfall, waded through a drainage tunnel and climbed over and crawled under moss-covered tree trunks. It was an exhausting but fun two hours, first in the quarry and then a wooded valley, with a soak in Fairfield’s hot tub a well-earned reward. Dinner was a terrific teriyaki salmon with rice and vegetables, followed by an incredible chocolate cookie.

Paula’s knowledge of nutrition is extraordinary for a self-confessed amateur. All the food was exceptional, with not a processed ingredient in sight.

DAY TWO

I let out a loud groan as the bell rang at 6.30am, pain in every joint as I stumbled out of the double bed in Fairfield’s Bollihope room (all the rooms are named after Weardale places). After shaking off the initial cramps and stiffness in my legs and arms, we set off on an 18-mile walk having been dropped off on the moor road between Weardale and Teesdale.

The hike took us through Hamsterley Forest, across moorland and farm fields to the Elephant Trees at Frosterley, then down along the back road into Stanhope, a route that took 30 seconds to write down but almost eight hours to walk. Not everyone lasted the distance but I persevered, with Faifield’s hot tub once again the much anticipated reward.

Fairfield House, in Weardale

This was a test of our endurance and endure we did, with another of Paula’s marvellous meals – a turkey meat shepherd’s pie with sweet potato and cauliflower – a welcome treat at the end.

The exercise was not quite over yet, though, an hour-long Pilates class that had initially met with some resentment from the shattered seven but actually proved to be a welcome stretching session that left us all feeling a little less achy afterwards.

DAY THREE

I felt surprisingly okay when the bell rang at 6.30am, not fine but certainly not as painful as the previous morning. Neil led us outside at 7am for a pre-breakfast game of fitness monopoly on Fairfield’s lawn. Split into two teams, we had to work our way around a square of cones, each stop denoting a different exercise from planking to push-ups, tyrecarrying to crawling beneath cargo nets.

After breakfast came the final challenge, two teams completing a timed 10km walk around the Stanhope area (including climbing the impossibly steep Crawleyside Bank) punctuated by six physical and mental challenges.

The first was in the quarry behind Fairfield, a gruelling job of carrying buckets of water up a steep slope to fill a butt, good teamwork was essential. Then we headed up to the common where we were met by Jacob, who told us we had to get two beer kegs over an electric fence using only planks or poles.

Six minutes later, we set off again to meet Paula at the bottom of the valley where we were blindfolded and guided around a conecourse by one of our team members. Alas, with time well on our side, I then made something of an error in my map-reading which led us two miles and an hour off course.

Undeterred by our now almost-certain loss, we completed challenge four, retrieving four pieces of wood from beyond a line with only our hands allowed to touch the designated ground. Challenge five was back at the edge of civilisation, half the team wheeling sand-bags up a steep slope, the other moving them across a carefully constructed course of logs and planks. Back at Fairfield, our final challenge was to navigate ourselves, some tyres and a water butt across the tennis court using only planks and pallets, an enjoyable task to end the fitness fun.

It was a tough three days, but the pleasure and pride at being able to complete it was overwhelming.

The key was being supported and helped by such a likeable group of people, both instructors and fellow camp residents.

Thanks to Paula and her team, I have been reacquainted with exercise, and can say with full sincerity: “Welcome back old friend”.

• Fairfield House, High Street, Stanhope DL13 2UR. Email: info@ fairfieldinweardale.co.uk. Web: fairfieldinweardale.co.uk.