2012 was an EPIC year for sport in England. After all the doubting and moaning and budget overspends, the Olympics was something that won even the most miserable couch potatoes over.
Now I'm not one for getting over excited watching sport, I've never been to a football match in my life and the idea of jumping up and down in public, waving my arms about screaming for grown men to kick a ball in a net or over a bar quite frankly offends my intellect.
But watching the Olympics last summer I found myself screaming at the telly along with a 5yr old child willing for Jonny Brownlee to stay ahead of that French guy with the best of them.
So what is the difference? For me triathlon is a proper sport, it's tough, you have to be fit and strong and determined, it's not filled with over paid pretty boys (although Marc Jenkins is not difficult to look at ;-P), triathletes aren't usually paid the GDP of a small African country every week although there's certainly a lot of money in the sport. Bikes that cost more than your average family car, wetsuits that cost the same as a week in Tenerife and running shoes that cost..... well more than my Jasper Conran's which is enough! That mud, sweat and tears thing simply demands more respect..... that and I am a self confessed flashy gear addict!
The "Summer of Sport" also seems to have had the curious affect of making us believe in a tiny part of our brains that actually, if we pulled on a pair of trainers, we could be just like "them". The once quiet country lanes are now filled with middle aged men in lycra who think they're going to win the Tour de France. There's more shiny new trainers around than stillettos and running groups seem to be leaping out on unsuspecting motorists at every junction.
We seem to be ignoring the fact that "they" have spent years getting to the top of their sports.
Not to mention that God was quite kind to them when he was dealing out body parts, slightly bigger lungs, slightly longer arms and so on....
Watching the Brownlee brothers crossing the line you could feel how hard they were running, how much effort they were giving but your brain chose to forget the years of training, the freak like natural ability, that these guys are the best in the world and even they looked like they were working hard. That tiny part of your brain said "If I pull on my trainers, I can be like that........"
The triathlon dream has been on my bucket list a long time, I really want to be able to call myself a triathlete or die trying. Obviously I've waited until my body is about to give up the ghost to try and realise that dream. I didn't have the money in my 20s for the flashy bike and the endless physio or the personal trainer. I didn't need them then. I was content with a second hand bike that cost £150 (....and is probably 2 sizes too big for me), I was hitting the gym 6 times a week but I'd never heard of sports massage or foam rollers, I didn't need a physio on speed dial and personal trainers were for Hollywood types or bored housewives.
A decade later I seem to need an Andy Murray style entourage just to keep me in the pool and have an ever growing collection of massage tools that would make a grown physio blush. I couldn't see the look on my physio's face when I told him, mostly because he was busy ripping out half my ribcage but pretty sure he was imagining early retirement off the back of this one!
So it is I find myself the proud owner of a shiny new bike that cost more than the new car I was forced to buy in order to ferry it around, I have the flashy Aquaskin from last year's midlife crisis and yes my trainers cost twice as much as my last pair of Jasper Conran's.......
The phrase "all the gear and no idea" springs to mind but I know I have to earn those pedals.
The event I've chosen to cut my triathlon teeth on is only a small one, a novices event at Eton Dorney, no stranger to Olympic efforts being the 2012 Olympic rowing venue. D-Day is Sunday 14th July 2013
With a few other events in the pipeline this year I'm really hoping that 2013 will be my "summer of sport" and like last year I will mostly be raising funds for the Rotary End Polio Now campaign.
Hold tight for the ride!
