When she appeared on TV series SAS Australia Hell Week Albion Park's Lisa Trujillo wasn't quite ready for all the yelling.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The two-week show is a spin-off the series SAS Australia, where non-celebrities tackle the same brutal, military type of training.
Trujillo, who owns an activewear business, had seen the show and knew the instructors had a tendency to yell at the recruits a lot - but even that knowledge didn't really prepare her.
"I think I might have been a little naive going into it because I didn't expect them to yell as loud and as in your face as what they did," Trujillo said.
"Ant Middleton, the main guy, he's quite short and I'm short. I'm 158cm and I weigh 68kg - I was actually the smallest one out of all of the recruits.
"With the yelling Ant was a similar height to me so every time he was yelling at me his nose and his lips were almost touching mine.
"It was really in my face. It was quite scary, it was quite daunting."
On top of that, Trujillo had a rushed preparation for the show.
She was picked as a reserve in case someone dropped out of the show before filming started.
She said the producers chose her because she would be able to drive to the Blue Mountains filming location at short notice
When that happened, she got a late call-up at 6pm on a Thursday saying 'get up there as soon as possible'.
"My safety briefing was at 3.30 in the morning and filming started at 6.30, so I didn't get any sleep going into it," she said.
"Everyone had already met for their interviews and photo shoots so I was pretty much rushed. The moment I actually got there I didn't know anyone and I didn't know what was going on."
There was only a two-week gap between being chosen as a reserve and the start of filming so Trujillo said there wasn't much time to do any special training to prepare for the onslaught.
The recruits all went through a fitness test as part of the selection process, and Trujillo's assessor said she had the strength and running side nailed, but the swimming might be a problem.
"I had to do the swimming test and it was treading water for five minutes, then swimming 200 metres," she said.
"I really really struggled with that because I was fully clothed and had to wear boots. I'm not a strong swimmer - it's a different style of fitness to what I'm used to. So for the two weeks he said 'drop doing any weights, don't do any more running - just swim'. So I ended up going down the Kiama Leisure Centre."
But the heated pool didn't really prepare her for diving into icy cold water at 2am.
A fan of the show, she said the course was much tougher than she expected.
"I was watching season one and I thought 'how hard can it be'?," she said.
"I'm pretty fit, I exercise every day. I used to be a personal trainer and gym instructor, so I just applied for it and I ended up getting on to it.
"The moment I got on the course I thought 'holy crap, what am I doing here?'."
She was inspired to appear on the show to push herself out of her comfort zone and show people she was tough. She also wanted to prove a point to her father, who passed away two years ago after a 20-year battle with Parkinson's disease
"A big reason as to why I went on it is because I wanted to make my dad proud," she said.
"My dad was really tough on me growing up and never ever said that he was proud of me so I guess I wanted to prove him wrong and have him watch over me.
"I guess I just wanted to make my dad proud - and also to inspire people to live out of their comfort zones."
The Illawarra Mercury news app is now officially live on both iOS and Android devices. It is available for download in the Apple Store and Google Play.