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I played Rugby Union football in the Winter term
at school, and spent the rest of the school year avoiding Cricket! Sport was compulsory at
school, which is probably why I subsequently began a long career of smoking, drinking and
no sport for some 25 years! Finally had to quit the smokes (2-3 packets a day) when
the leg pains got a bit too exciting. Started jogging some years after and would have
continued quite happily in this vein, except that some idiot convinced me that "you
could easily run a marathon". So there I was one evening, just turned 50 and with
nasty blisters from running Stockholm Marathon in 33 degree heat! Turned out to be
such fun that I trained a lot more. And a whole lot more again, ran Helsinki Marathon 3
months later and was by then so injured that it took 18 months to recover! Ran for many
years after that and had 3 attempts at running Berlin Marathon before finally getting to
the finish. First a stress fracture and then a last-minute fever. After a while my knees
started to get sore and the Sports Doc. told me to lay off the marathon training. And so
began my current flirt with Triathlon. Now I own two wetsuits, two racing bikes (a
Litespeed Sabre for Tri and a Principia Rex Pro for road work). They've given me a lot of
pleasure, including two memorable training weeks in Italy (Viareggio 2001,
Riolo Terme 2002) with the very
famous Swedish cyclist Bernt Johansson. Very nice relaxed chap Bernt, won the gold medal
at the Montreal Olympics at about the time I was wandering around the world trying to lose
Australia. (Or myself, never quite sure which it was). Never got to be much good at
swimming and I've lost that initial excitement. Been there, done that. Most of the
people I've met give tri away after two years. But I still keep up the training and
participate in the local club since I really enjoy my tucker and keeping reasonably fit. |