Sonia O’Sullivan: Getting inside the enduring success of Ireland’s Fittest Family

At the start it’s a bit like the first day of school. Everyone is excited with their new uniforms and meeting the coaches, before you begin to realise what lies ahead. Like when those shiny new runners go straight into the lake, and God knows what’s underneath.

It’s the final week of heats for Ireland’s Fittest Family, before things ramp up again for the knockout stages. This was my life for several weeks this summer, and like everyone else, including the families involved, I am only now watching the result each Sunday evening.

Getting involved in the programme gave me a proper appreciation for what makes it such an enduring success. The interaction between the families is quite staggering. The programme is in its 11th season, and I feel many viewers get emotionally connected as there is such a mix of personalities, with someone for everyone to relate to.

Nobody ever asks me who won, or how did you get on. I thought it would be harder not to divulge what happens each week, but nobody really wants to know. Nobody wants to spoil the outcomes each week.

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Even though I was in the trenches with my families, trying out some events and running far from others, I now look forward to Sunday as if I don’t even know the results.

Some families arrive with more direct sporting experience than others. That’s not always an advantage.

Watching it back you also get to relive all those moments that quickly get put aside, as you moved on from one family to the next family, making your way through the long days of filming with the benefit of bright summer evenings. Sometimes it felt like there was no finish line in sight.

That’s the thing when it comes to any TV show. There is such a difference between the many actual hours of filming and waiting around (between rain showers) than what you see when it’s all whittled down for an hour each Sunday evening.

It means the whole production for the initial 16 families is as much about their mental strength as physical strength. There is a lot of waiting around.

It’s not exactly downtime either, as you could be called at any moment for an interview, a walk-through, a drone shot, just when everyone wants a call to action and the countdown to the next event start line.

Each coach gets four families. You meet some at a training day, others for the first time early in the morning on the day of filming.

It’s an intense introduction, then straight into coaching and mentoring. You are trying to take so much in, in such a short time, decipher what’s involved and work out the best possible tactics and strategies specific to each family.

Just like any coach-athlete relationship, there are more than one set of eyes looking at the task that lies ahead, how best to attack a situation and deliver the best possible results. Everyone needs to be on board with the best plan and work as a team.

There’s a lot of learning as you go and not much is divulged in advance for each new challenge and each new location. Just when you’re getting comfortable it’s time to move and reset.

We started at the Rathbeggan Lakes, then moved to a potato farm, before the bog in Kilruddery Estate. There are no second chances or retakes. Once the siren is fired, that’s it, you get one shot. And it’s got to be your best if you are to go straight through to the next round.

The least favoured option is the short day that sends your family straight home with no second chance in the dreaded eliminator. But you soon learn if you get through the eliminator that it’s good practice for the final, which always ends with an even higher wall climb and the infamous Fittest Family Ramp.

As a new coach coming alongside the more experienced coaches, Davy Fitz and Donncha O’Callaghan, plus Nina Carberry in her second year, there’s a lot to learn and plenty of mistakes along the way.

Most of the families have been tuning in for years, just waiting for that youngest child to turn 14 and become eligible to send in the application.

There are some interviews and trials to make the final cut of 16. It’s not all about who is the fastest or strongest, but a combination of general strength and fitness skills that can be spread across the family dynamic.

Just like a water park, everyone wants to jump straight in. But that’s for later – first you are given the tour and rules at the various courses, to work out how to piece it all together, navigate across the lake and over the hay bales without being stopped in your tracks at the balance beam. None of it is as easy as it can appear on the screen.

There is no practice run through, everyone just tries to get comfortable, pushing aside any doubts and fears.

You turn up early in the morning and may just about get some competitive action in before lunch. The excitement and adrenaline soon wear off, and you need to refocus and be ready to compete repeatedly, sometimes three times in one day.

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For me, the best events are the head-to-head races where you can see your competitors and lay everything on the line. In the individual time-trial events it’s all a bit unknown, until you all come together for the big reveal, and you just have to hope you have done enough to go one step further.

One thing is clear – the family dynamic and support are critical, and maybe this is one show that truly brings families together, whether sitting on the couch or plotting how they can one day sign up and see how they measure up.

And here’s another certainty: this season is only getting started, there’s plenty more competition and drama to trigger that old family competitiveness in all of us.