Carrs hang on to make final of Ireland's Fittest Family

There was a bit of a hurdle in last Sunday night’s episode, but generally it’s been a really good performance,” is Simon Carr’s assessment of their performance so far in Ireland’s Fittest Family.

The hurdle was the Hang Tough challenge, in which the Carrs were under pressure and finished third, but they mastered the rowing race, and in the eliminator, they dragged the forklift with what looked like relative ease, flew over the containers and all four made the top of the high finish ramp on the first go.

All that means they are in the final, so they are pleased with progress so far.

Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner on behalf of the family, Simon said: “Being in an Eliminator again wasn’t ideal, it wasn’t where we wanted to be, but I think we did a really good job in it, to use our strength and get a good lead early. The rowing was really strong from us too, though from a personal note, the Hang Tough was a little bit disappointing – from all of us. But we pulled together pretty well after it.”

The Carrs are now looking forward to the final.

The family are all into sport and have achieved at high level, including their mother Mary and sister Vicky, who aren’t on the Fittest Family team with Simon, Gareth, Elizabeth and father Tommy.

Asked if they put in extra preparation ahead of the competition, Simon said: “I think there was a good base there, and though you’re kept in the dark about what exercises are coming up, you might be able to get a couple of nuggets off your coach, in our case, Anna, who gave us a few pointers on what’s important.

“So, we tailored it a little bit to what she recommended.”

That advice included dealing with walls and ramps, common challenges in Fittest Family, and working to nail down a tactic on how to approach those.”

“But it’s such an unknown competition,” said Simon. “You have no idea what’s going to come up. Your helmet could get stuck in the net, there’s so many variables that are in play, so it’s difficult to prepare as much – it’s more about adapting mid-exercises.”

He said he had to adapt quickly to getting stuck in, as none of the events was longer than four or five minutes: “So it’s about getting out to a fast start in all of them, not saving yourself at all in any regard. It’s more about just leaving it out there for as long as you can.

“We just need to be able to adapt well, work well together as a team, and improvise depending on what the environment throws up,”

The three siblings and father live in different areas, so training together didn’t happen as much as they would have liked, though they did a day of wall climbing practice with their coach Anna Geary on the Old Rail Trail

“Anna’s exactly as she looks to be on the television,” said Simon. “She’s got energy. She has a lot of experience at Ireland’s Fittest Family, and she’s just a great person as well – she was very interested in us and how we were doing and how we were finding things. We couldn’t have asked for a better coach or mentor, she’s been instrumental in getting us up to this point.”