Rachel Woolford: 'Leaving Leeds business to film the Apprentice for eight weeks was toughest thing I've done'

The 28-year-old, who lives in Shadwell, said that she has never set an out-of-office email before and found it hard to step away from work.

Speaking candidly to the Leeds Business Podcast, Rachel also discussed the impact lockdown had on her, describing the second round of restrictions and closing the studio again as the “lowest period of my life”.

Rachel opened her boutique gym North Studio, in Roundhay, just over four years ago. Her plans for expansion impressed business mogul Lord Alan Sugar in this year’s series of The Apprentice and saw her win a £250,000 investment in her company.

Phil Fraser, the host of the Leeds Business Podcast, asked her about stepping away from North Studio to film the show.

Sign up for our free newsletters today

She said: “Leaving it was the toughest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve been on holidays since starting the business, but I’ve always had my laptop with me, and [on The Apprentice] I had no phone.”

Rachel added: “I had a month between finding out I was on the show and leaving. That month was just dedicated to prepping so I could leave. It was hard, because I couldn’t tell people where I was going.

“I’ve never had an out-of-office email in my life. I had to say that I was away from my emails with no access to them, it sounded so dodgy.”

Rachel explained that the BBC advised her to tell friends and clients she was on jury duty, as it was unknown how long she would be away from the business for.

“One of my clients thought I’d been in prison,” she laughed. “That was quite funny.”

Rachel opened North Studio in March 2020, just as the pandemic was arriving in the country. She said there was a period when the business would fluctuate between being open and closed, as government rules around social distancing constantly changed.

During the first wave, she ran online classes and would even hold socially distanced personal training sessions from a car park in all weathers.

But she said that the second lockdown affected her the most.

“It was a really tough period for me mentally, those six months when we were closed,” she told the podcast.

“It was probably harder than the first lockdown because I had all this momentum and there was no guidance as to when we were going to come out of lockdown.”

She added: “I was living by myself in a flat and I had this business. It was the lowest period of my life, I’d say. Opening back up in May 2021 was such a relief.”

Having opened a second site in Harrogate, Rachel has plans to use Lord Sugar’s investment to expand across the North of England.