Have you told your wife yet?

Following my first blog, the questions haven’t been “how’s the training going?” or “are you feeling well?” but “have you told your wife, yet?”

Well, sort of. Not exactly. No, I didn’t. This is what happened: I had mentioned Wimbleball to the rehab nurses, because I wanted to be able to increase my training. And then one of them left a message on my answer phone at home, which my wife picked up: “….regarding the Ironman you’re doing, I’ve arranged a time for you to do a treadmill ECG…”
I know.

Now, at this point, I should be describing my training routine and my progress against my targets, but I’ve had a bit of a relapse… a relapse into laziness, probably. But, in any case, you may rapidly find that my blog differs from others’ in a crucial respect. I’m surrounded by real athletes, considering how to improve their times. The suspense contained in their accounts is mainly down to whether they will shave a minute or two off their PBs. The suspense surrounding my account is whether I make it to the starting line.

I suspect that the outcome that James Witts and the nice 220 team would really like is that I succeed in finishing Wimbleball, and then keel over on the finishing line. That would provide a certain drama…..and get the ratings up (or whatever it is that happens with blogs). And 220 would own ‘all rights’ to the back-story.

You may laugh. I tried to arrange life insurance the other day. I’ve recently become self-employed and no longer have any cover through my work, so it was on my list of ‘responsible’ things to do.

I called Legal and General and quickly had a sense of foreboding as we ran through the questionnaire: “Height? Weight? Do you smoke? Any recent heart trouble?” After going through the whole questionnaire, the computer said “no”. Nothing doing. Life insurance impossible at any price. “Call back in six months if you’re feeling lucky, sucker.” To be fair, I made up the bit in italics, but they did say to try again in 6 months’. And they didn’t even know about Wimbleball, or it might have been an understandable risk assessment.

I promise to train hard over Christmas, and will try to avoid a broken leg skiing in the New Year.