Varuna’s bootcamp story at Stave Hill

Varuna started at Bootcamp SE16 in September 2013 expecting her thirties to be a slow decline, and finished her first year of training having passed 100 sessions, climbed mountains and run around 1,200 kilometres. This is her story.

It begins with turning 30 and with everything women are told about what happens next. That the body goes. That the good years are behind you. She had heard it enough times to half believe it.

The gym years

Varuna had tried the usual route more than once. Chain gyms, and some strange classes along the way, including a session on trampolines with glow sticks and a spin class held in the dark. None of it stuck, because none of it was something she wanted to go back to.

In September 2013 she found Steph listed on Gumtree and emailed her. The message was honest about being nervous, and clear about what she was actually after, which was somewhere the training was hard but fun.

The first session

Her first bootcamp was on 14 September 2013. Squat pyramids and burpee box jumps, on a hill, outdoors, in front of people. She spent a good part of it wondering whether she would come back.

She came back. That is the whole trick, and it is why we make the first fortnight easy to commit to rather than easy to abandon.

From wedding dress to something better

By January 2014 Varuna had added personal training sessions. The original reason was practical: she wanted to feel strong in her wedding dress. What she found instead was that the motivation quietly shifted. Being capable turned out to be a better goal than looking a certain way, and it lasted longer.

She put it simply:

It means finding something that I enjoy and that I look forward to rather than dread.

That is a low bar in theory and a very high one in practice. Most people who have failed at gym memberships have never once looked forward to going.

What a year added up to

By her 31st birthday in October 2014 the tally was 100 sessions, mountains climbed, and roughly 1,200 kilometres run. None of that was the plan when she sent the first email. It was the by-product of training several times a week at something she liked.

Her conclusion, on the birthday she had been dreading, was that life had not gone downhill after all. She had found strength, a group of people and a fair amount of self-acceptance instead.

Why the group matters

Varuna is generous about Steph and about the other bootcampers, and that is not incidental. Training at Stave Hill Ecological Park means the same faces every week, people who notice when you are missing and say so. For anyone who has drifted out of three gyms without a single person noticing, that is the difference.

If you are approaching a birthday you would rather not think about, you do not need to be fit to start. You need one session you did not hate.