We tend to find too few occasions in our adult lives when we get to play like we did when we were children. And by play, I mean getting covered in mud, sliding down water slides and running as part of a pack, howling and laughing.
It was this liberating feeling that inspired TV presenter Laura Woods to take on the Hell and Back challenge in Killruddery, Co Wicklow. The mental and physical endurance challenge, which has grown in popularity over the past number of years, is an obstacle course race.
“I found it quite freeing in a way,” she says. “There are rare occasions in your adult life that you will end up soaked, covered in mud and hurtling down a makeshift water slide. I found it quite liberating, it harps back to your youth when those kind of things were right up your alley.”
There are varying course lengths – Woods did the 8km option – and the focus is on tackling obstacles and completion as opposed to winning.
Hell and Back is not for the faint hearted, but the sense of achievement on completion makes it worthwhile, explains Woods, whose husband, Mark Arigho, also took part. Woods admits she never believed she would have taken part in an adventure race and would encourage others who are apprehensive to give it a go.
“I think that the photos can be quite intimidating, even though they are hilarious. You kind of think, can I do that? And absolutely you can. As I said, I am not a fitness fanatic and I am not a gym bunny, but I found it much more fun than I thought it would be.”
Balancing full-time work, full-time motherhood and keeping fit, the TV3 presenter is modest and realistic.
She doesn’t big herself up, she doesn’t reveal any great secrets, simply saying that she just makes time for exercise.
It is the good feeling the mum-of-two knows she will get after exercising that motivates her at the end of a long day, when she just wants to curl up on the couch, to get up and go.
Making time
Woods says now that her kids are a little older – Ben is five and Alex is three – that it is a little easier to make time for exercise. The couple’s eldest son thought he had the coolest parents in the world when he saw them covered in muck at the finish line of the challenge. He has since convinced them to sign him up for Hell and Back junior in September.
Woods feels it is important that young kids are exposed to a healthy lifestyle from the people who surround them. Both her and her husband are active and she says it is important that children are exposed to healthy habits equally from both parents.
“I think it is extremely important to lead by example and in a way that is what happened to me, because my mum and dad would have been into their fitness . . . Not to the extent that they were out every day, but I knew they got enjoyment from it.
“Whether or not I knew it at the time, it was sort of instilled in me as part of a balanced life.”
And what about injuries? Woods has what she describes as a “dodgy hip”, for which she attends physio. She was mindful of this during the challenge. It required extensive stretching before and after the race and is something that she has to be conscious of when exercising.
In training for the event, she jogged and walked to improve her cardiovascular fitness and worked on upper body strength to help her get over the obstacles.
As a child and teenager, Woods was very active, participating in a range of different activities from swimming to dance. She says that she was never number one on the sports team, nor was fitness the primary motivation for taking part in these activities.
“Like I said, never number one on the sports team, but I enjoyed it and I think really as an adult that is the most important lesson that I have learned. I don’t have to be amazing at it, I can just enjoy it and push myself a little more each time. There is no competition, it is just about maintaining a fitness level.”
It was not always plain sailing however, and there were times when Woods’ injury flared up and she felt exhausted.
However, age shouldn’t be a deterrent to exercising, she says and being in her late 30s will not prevent her from improving her fitness. She will continue to push herself, strengthen her core muscles and improve her strength and conditioning.
She says it is gratifying to see the results when you treat your injuries and put in the hours of training. “It is amazing how much there is a ladder of achievement. You do find that you are a little bit faster than you were before, you can knock off a few extra lengths in the pool, you can run that extra kilometre and I think that is very gratifying and encouraging.
“I am only in my late 30s, I am not geriatric, even though some days I feel like it. It is important to me to keep that strength and keep that fitness, because with the two smallies and working full-time, I need the energy. It is very important for me to function.”
Reflecting on Hell and Back, Woods is honest as ever: “I fell off the monkey bars, I fell into the swamp and I fell over the hedge, but I suppose that is half of the fun. You cannot come out unscathed or it would look like you didn’t do it.”
She may have fallen off the monkey bars and may not be a self-confessed fitness fanatic, but Woods certainly has balance, setting a good example for her kids.
Buplex is a new Hell and Back Partner for 2016 and 2017. Their addition to the course - the "Buplex Hellslide” - is a slippery 100-foot waterslide designed to alleviate some of the weariness for participants.
