Preparing for Vipassana

I am about to start some of my annual leave and am going to spend 10 days on an intensive mindfulness retreat in the Vipassana tradition.
I would like to say "this will be fun" but it won't, it will be hard work. Including things like meditating at 4 a.m.  The teacher suggests you do that because later in the day everything gets crowded out.  I find this to be true.
There is a good article here about how it works.((http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/31/meditation-retreat-vipassana-new-zealand-exhausting-silence-spiders?CMP=share_btn_fb#_=_
)pretty scary!