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Probably should explain this one. I liked swimming. Swimming involved water. Must do some kind of sport that involved water. Logical.

I’d had my first taste of windsurfing whilst on holiday with my parents in Greece. Corfu to be more precise. I was probably about twelve so this definitely wasn’t a ‘going out clubbing’ holiday in some kind of Ibiza Weekender thing. No, this was a family holiday involving a beach and occasional sightseeing to some local ruin (or something like that). The beach that we went to near our villa was one where you can do various watersports like tazzing about on a jet ski, water skiing or windsurfing. After watching this from the comfort of the sun bed we decided it would be good to give the windsurfing a go. There was a guy offering lessons on the beach. He was your fairly typical leather skinned sun worshipper who spent the summer season teaching windsurfing and the winter season being a ski instructor. To a twelve year old kid, that sounded like the coolest life on the planet. Probably still does.

My dad, brother and me signed up for an hour lesson whilst my mum carried on sunbathing. Since my dad and I don’t tan, at all, doing something active was always good. I actually like the sun but my skin definitely doesn’t. Avoiding getting burnt has always been the prime objective even though I have occasionally attempted to go for a lower factor in the vain hope that I would go some other colour than pink or red. I’ve learnt over the years that this is a pointless exercise. My uncle (who practically went black) would take great pleasure in ribbing me for coming back from holiday exactly the same colour as when I left. My mum and brother on the other hand used to put on sun oil and come back looking like they were from deepest, darkest India. All that really happens to me is that my hair and eyebrows go blonde, I turn red for a bit, peel and then go back to normal. Pointless.

Covered from head to toe in factor nine million I headed off to the lesson. The first part involved practising lifting the sail on a demo board on the beach. This was as far as I got. I was a bit small in those days and didn’t have the strength in my skinny arms to pull the sail up, much to my annoyance and embarrassment. I spent the next hour watching my brother and dad learn the basics first on the sand and then in the water. I was pretty jealous so sat there silently fuming.

Fast forward a few years to my mid-twenties and I was well in to my post rugby injury wilderness years. I’d been trying to find a replacement for rugby that involved something a bit more interesting than just swimming or running and somehow landed on windsurfing as a possibility. I can’t recall why I’d settled on that, but it’s probably something to do with regular visits to my parents second home in Aberdovey, mid Wales. My parents had bought it whilst I was working in Paris, having been looking at that area for some time. Some friends of ours from Lichfield Swimming Club owned a house there and we’d stayed there occasionally on a few weekends. Aberdovey itself is a really nice seaside village with a beautiful long beach that is a great place to relax. The house that my parents bought has a fantastic view of the sea that is amazingly calming. From there you can see the boats coming in and out, as well as watching the windsurfers bombing up and down. They occasionally have windsurfing championships there as the wind can be perfect for racing. It’s quite a sight to watch. Jo, my Swimming Club mate was part of the family who owned the house that we had stayed at. She is a pretty decent windsurfer and makes it look easy. I guess I thought that it would be cool to learn how to windsurf and then do it when in Aberdovey. Made perfect sense to me. How hard could it be?

I signed up for beginner’s lessons at Chasewater sailing club, which was only ten miles from where I lived in Lichfield at that time. The lessons were held on three consecutive weekends and I picked up the basics of getting on the board, lifting up the sail, staying on and turning. There were a group of us on the course and I quite enjoyed it. Turning was always a bit of a struggle. Rather than flipping around like Jo and other seasoned windsurfers, I had to basically drop the sail, walk round the end of the board and then lift the sail back up to get going again. Well that was the idea, most of the time I fell off and had to climb back on to start the entire process all over again. Anyway, that’s just part of the learning curve after only a few lessons so I wasn’t too dispirited.

Following that initial course I would regularly go down to the club on Saturdays, borrow a board and practice. After a number of weekends doing this I decided it would be a good idea to get a board of my own. Luckily I’d just got my year-end bonus from work (I was a medical sales representative at the time for 3M. This basically involved selling wound dressings to nurses in hospitals or in the community. I’d never intended to get in to sales but like most of my roles during my career, I fell in to it and ended up quite enjoying it. Getting a year-end bonus for a good year was a pretty good perk in my book) so I decided to buy one. Not knowing an awful lot about what type of gear to get I went to the local windsurfing shop in Chasetown and enquired what to get. I was reliably informed that for a beginner/intermediate like myself a Bic Techno was the board of choice. So that’s what I got.

I fully intended to get competent on it at the club and end up taking it to Aberdovey where I could get out in to the swell at the weekends we were there. I enjoyed the freedom that having my own board brought so went down to Chasewater fairly regularly to practice my turns. Now, the one thing about windsurfing is that the best conditions are when the weather is bad. This completely makes sense of course as stormy weather brings the wind, and provides the best conditions for going fast. It also means that in the UK, these conditions generally mean that it’s cold and miserable. For great windsurfers this isn’t an issue because they don’t often fall in. For relative newcomers like me though, falling in is pretty standard. Not a problem I thought, it’s a necessary part of getting better. The trouble is I’d seen Point Break, the surfing film where Keanu Reeves is a cop who learns to surf in order to infiltrate a gang of surfing bank robbers. In fact I’d watched it dozens of times. Not because it was a fantastic film, but because it was our post pub film in my third year at University. Fuelled by beer and tucking in to kebabs or chips my housemates and I would watch Keanu and Patrick Swayze doing their surfing thing in crystal clear waters in some ocean paradise. It was complete nonsense but myself, Mark, Wyn and Ian (my housemates) would get great amusement from quoting the cheesey lines until we passed out on the sofa.

Windsurfing in the UK, particularly on a lake in the Midlands (which is about as far away from the coast as you can get) bore no resemblance to the Point Break image. I clearly hadn’t thought this through. With very little body fat to insulate me from the cold I tended to get wet and miserable pretty quickly so stormy conditions weren’t very appealing. Rather than embracing the terrible weather and ‘waiting for my set’ like Patrick Swayze’s character in point Break, Bodie, I would avoid going down the club preferring instead to go out it in sunnier, warmer conditions. I basically became a fair weather surfer which defeated the whole point. Mastering the art of quickly turning in windy conditions was not really going to happen. This was in spite of the encouragement from Jo and her husband, Stu, to get out on the board and practice. The trouble was that they were much more used to braving the conditions. In fact they lived in Scotland right on the West Coast where they could rig up on their lawn and jump straight in to the estuary. Stu was an ardent watcher of the weather forecasts and would revel in the approach of storms so he could get out in to the choppy conditions. He has loads of stories of his windsurfing antics including one when he decided to surf in the wake of a surfacing submarine. He ended up getting pulled over by a Police boat, not because it was illegal but more because they were concerned he’d get dragged in to the propeller that followed the vessel. Fearing he’s get minced they suggested he no longer did it. Stu listened politeyly and then continued doing it as soon as they’d gone.

Exciting as these stories sounded, spending my weekends getting cold and wet started to lose its appeal. It wasn’t long before the board was resigned to the garage along with other dropped hobbies. Getting an Olympic medal from Windsurfing was clearly not going to happen. Back to the drawing board once more.

I was given Snowboard lesson vouchers for my birthday one year. These were for Tamworth Snowdome, not far from where I lived in Lichfield. I had always fancied giving it a go but wasn’t sure how I’d get on. I’d always been a skier and I’d been told that snowboarding was a completely different technique more akin to skateboarding. Although it was pretty popular for a few of my mates when I was at school I had never tried getting on a skateboard. I couldn’t see the appeal. Falling off on to concrete just didn’t sound like a barrel of laughs. Not to be put off I enrolled in the lessons with every intention of becoming a snowboarder for an upcoming holiday in Cervinia, Italy.

I ended up doing three lessons in total. It was true that the technique involved is quite different. In skiing I was used to putting my weight forward on to the front of my feet, but snowboarding seemed to involve the weight shifting to your heels. I can’t say I was a natural. I got the basics but it was obviously one that you need to persevere otherwise you end up constantly face planting and eating snow. However, after the lessons I felt capable enough to try it out on holiday.

I made the mistake of hiring out skis for the first two days of the holiday. By the time I hired the snowboard on the third day I was completely used to skiing again. I spent the whole day on my backside. I also found it frustrating when the piste flattened off. Without ski poles to push myself along I ended up unclipping and walking to the next downhill section. After falling down for the umpteenth time I decided to take the board back and get back on to my trusty skis. Probably not quite as cool as the boarding scene, but it all just seemed like far too much hard work to me.

Attempt failed. This wasn’t for me.

Lessons learnt for Ironman? Er…don’t change tack at the last minute and wimp out on your plans? That’s all I can think of, but that’ll do.

I first got introduced to skiing whilst on a boy Scout trip to Scotland. I was a member of the Stonnall Scout club, having started as a Cub at Primary school. My brother and I used to go down to the local scout hut in the village every Thursday evening after school. I remember it was a big deal growing up. Pretty much all of my friends at the school were also members. After going through the ceremony of getting your first woggle (major big deal for a seven year old) the objective seemed to be to try and win as many badges as possible. You won a badge for completing a task or activity. For example, there was a ‘hobby’ badge that you could get by demonstrating your knowledge in your chosen subject. If you passed the criteria outlined in the boy scout handbook you would be awarded a badge which you then sewed on to your shirt or jumper. Having a sleeve full of badges was like getting thousands of likes on Facebook. You were the man. For my hobby badge I chose Star Wars. This was an easy choice as I was completely nuts about the films and was obsessed with collecting all of the action figures. It wasn’t hard to buy me presents for birthday and Christmas. Literally anything related to Star Wars was a result as far as I was concerned. Easiest scout badge earnt ever.

It was a great social environment and we quite often went away on camping trips. These were always to sites geared up for outdoor activities. As a kid growing up it was perfect. I can’t possibly list everything that we did, but we got introduced to abseiling, climbing, orienteering, archery, horse riding and a host of others. I loved the variety. Even then it suited my desire to try as many things as possible. It was on a camping trip not far from Aviemore when I had my first skiing taster. It was during the summer so we went to the dry ski slope. We only went up and down the bottom section of the slope but we were introduced to the basics and it was great fun.

It wasn’t until a few years later that I got my second go at it. The Friary school organised a skiing trip to Austria whilst I was in my third year and my parents agreed to let me go. In preparation, myself and a few others who were novices undertook lessons at the closest dry ski slope in Atherstone. We went regularly for a few weeks and I gradually grew in confidence, eventually going from the top of the slope. One day I got a bit carried away and attempted to go a bit faster rather than the usual approach of zig zagging down. Picking up speed, I lost control and crossed my skis. The next few minutes were a blur. I knew I’d had a crash but didn’t really know what had happened. I picked myself up off the floor and made my way back to the bottom of the slop to get the button lift back up. I was just about to go down again when another skier put his hand on my shoulder and politely suggested I got off the slope. Feeling a bit groggy I followed his advice and went and got changed. It turns out I’d done a somersault and landed on my head! I had a pounding headache over the next few days so I’m pretty sure I momentarily knocked myself out. Always good to get a bout of concussion to fill you with confidence ahead of a week’s skiing holiday.

Undaunted I carried on practicing and got on the plane with the others going from the school a few weeks later. This was my first foreign trip without my parents and it was fantastic. I’m sure they were very nervous about it but I couldn’t wait. The whole thing was an adventure. When we finally arrived at the resort we sorted ourselves in to dormitories. I was in a room with five other lads, with the usual teenage banter. We probably got a few hours sleep that first night and then it was down for breakfast the next morning before getting kitted out with skis, boots and poles.

We were split in to groups based on our ability and met up with our ski instructors. The one who was in charge of the group I was in turned out to be the son of the resort owner. It soon became obvious that he was only bothered about doing exactly what he wanted to do. He didn’t like hanging around for anyone and became easily irritated by those in the group not able to keep up. We stuck to the main pistes for the first couple of days but after that he took us on his own routes. He was a bit of a poser, but he was good fun. We did powder skiing, moguls and lots of other things that we probably shouldn’t have been doing. He basically didn’t care. After all, there was no way he was going to get fired.

This was going well until the fourth day. Mr ‘too cool for this job’ took us straight to the top of the mountain, with the intention of more off-piste skiing. I came off the chair lift as usual, pushed off to start skiing when my clasp that held my right ski boot in place fell off. My instructor took one look at it and rolled his eyes. There was no way he could fix it, the only option was to go back to the hire centre for them to sort it out. Skiing on one ski wasn’t an option so I had to get back on the chair lift and make my way back down to the bottom of the mountain. Going up on a chair lift is fun, going down is pants. I was the only one going down and it was a series of lifts with some walking involved between each lift section. It took hours. When I eventually got to the hire centre I presented my broken ski to the guy behind the desk. He was about as sympathetic as a lion tamer. Muttering something about ‘doing it when I’ve got a spare minute’ he walked off and left me there standing like a proper plum. After Mr miserable finally got round to fixing my ski I was back out with the group later that afternoon.

The rest of the trip went smoothly and time flew. The instructor continued to take us on magical mystery tours and we all improved loads over the course of the week. On top of that, the setting was beautiful. Austria was a perfect location for my first snow skiing holiday. The pistes went through deep forests and the views from the mountain were breath taking. The village itself was really pretty with traditional chalets and restaurants dotted everywhere. In the evenings we had a meal in the hotel followed by some kind of entertainment, mainly discos where we did embarrassing boy dancing in a vain attempt to impress the girls. It didn’t, obviously. Sliding about on your knees pretending to play air guitar is pretty standard for lads, whereas the girls sat around blatantly ignoring us. At least we had a laugh. By the end of the week I was shattered but had had a great time. When we arrived back home our parents were waiting for us. I remember my mum coming over and being delighted to see me. She wanted to know everything about the trip, but I was in a proper grump on the drive back home. I’d had such a great time but my post-holiday blues translated in to an ungrateful teenager. Can’t say I’m proud of that.

I didn’t ski again until a number of years later. After my knee injury I was understandably nervous about doing anything that involved twisting and skiing put a lot of pressure on your knee joints. However, I hadn’t had any issues for a few years following my second ligament repair so I was willing to give it a go. I took the extra precaution of buying a reinforced knee brace and had a trial go at the new Snowdome at Tamworth before going ahead and booking a holiday to Andorra. It was as good as I remember. Spent the week exploring the routes around the mountain, getting used to be being back on the skis. There were some difficult sections where going down a black route was unavoidable, but overall it was just good fun to be on the snow again. It wasn’t long before I was going down the pistes as fast as I possibly could.

I wouldn’t say I’m the most graceful of skiers. In fact, my technique is pretty kamikaze. I’ve subsequently done holidays in Italy, Switzerland and France and my approach is always the same. Start gently for a morning, and then go full gas from then on. I’m not sure it’s the best approach for someone with a dodgy knee but I like the adrenaline rush of flying down a mountain.

I always come back from these holidays more tired than I was before I went but they are great fun and are an amazing leg workout. Probably great preparation for long distance events, although I’m not sure the muscle groups or the injury risk factor necessarily support a build up to an Ironman. Maybe not one to include on the training programme this time round

Every year there was a West Midlands Biathlon race in Evesham, near Worcester, that acted as a qualifier for a newly created British National championships. If you finished in the top six, you went through. Having gained my confidence I came fifth in my first qualifier. This meant I could go to the National GB Championships being held in Southampton. This felt like a big deal to a twelve year old lad, and my parents were massively supportive. We made a weekend of it, driving the three or four hours down in my mum’s red Metro (yes, it was as stylish as it sounds). The Nationals were held over two days, with the swim on the Saturday and the run the following day. I was so excited, but really nervous too. Looking back, it probably wasn’t the best organised event in the world but it was my first taste of something bigger than regional races. We stayed in a hotel on the Friday and went along to the swimming pool at Southampton on the Saturday to register.

I did my usual warm up, practising starts and turns and getting used to the pool. Before long I was lined up waiting to start my race. Competitors were grouped according to swim times so I was with others of the same ability. As usual in all of the biathlons I did, I didn’t quite make my personal best meaning I lost some potential points on offer. This was something I got used to. A slight feeling of disappointment that I couldn’t produce my best when it mattered, and knowing that I was going to have to pull a good performance out of the bag on the run. No pressure then.

After a good night’s sleep, we made it down to the park for the run course. It was similar to the West Midlands course, over fields and finishing in some woods. I wore my spikes as it was slightly damp underfoot and waited as usual in line behind the other competitors for the start. Adopting my new tactic of going out like a bat out of hell for as long as I could, I sprinted out as soon as the official released me. I flew round and set a new personal best of 2mins and 57 seconds, the first time I’d gone under 3 minutes. It was good enough to get the third fastest time of the day, so I knew I’d leap up the leaderboard. It was then a long wait for the results.

My brother by that time was completely bored by the whole thing and was dying to go home. I can’t blame him, I’d have felt exactly the same. After what seemed like an eternity I found out I’d come 11th overall. I guess that doesn’t sound amazing, but in my little brain it meant I was 11th in the whole of Great Britain. That sounded pretty good to me, and was by the far the best result I’d ever achieved. I was chuffed to bits. Disappointed not to be getting medals, but chuffed nonetheless. I know my parents were too. It didn’t seem quite so long on the drive back, well to me anyway. I think my brother might not agree, but I felt like I was on cloud 9.

I subsequently competed in a few national championships, with my best placing being 7th at Corby in 1990. The same year the first International Biathlon event was held, and due to my result at Corby I was selected to represent the Midlands/England. This was undoubtedly the highest level of competition I had been involved in so far, so I was understandably excited about the competition. I started to train hard in preparation, and it was all going well until I contracted chicken pox from my brother a few weeks before the event. Even though my mum had taken us to so called ‘chicken pox’ parties when we were younger, neither of us had caught it. My brother had just started university at Aberystwyth and came home once he started getting ill. It wasn’t much fun for me as a sixteen year old but I got off lightly in comparison with Dave who ended up with shingles. My mum also contracted it, so all three of us were feeling sorry for ourselves at home for a couple of weeks. I remember dousing myself in Camomile lotion every day to try and prevent the itching. I looked like a ghost most of the time, pale and pasty from the cream. One day I decided to have a bath to try and make myself feel slightly more human, but this only intensified the itching when I got out. It was a thoroughly miserable experience for all concerned.

So I wasn’t in the best of shape leading up to the competition but I was determined to take part in case I never got the opportunity again. The event was also held at Corby with the usual format but this time I was part of a team of three representing the region. There was a team prize as well as an individual one, which made things a bit more interesting. I knew some of the competitors from the national championships, but there were also competitors from other countries. The guy to beat was a Welsh guy called Rhys, he won every national championships that I’d been involved in. Unsurprisingly he came first and equally unsurprising was that I didn’t get anywhere near my personal best times. The chicken pox had wiped me out and I hadn’t really had any time to get near my usual fitness. I’d say it was the taking part that mattered, but I don’t really mean that. I’m not much good at accepting defeat.

Having done a few competitions and seeing how they were run, my mum decided that it would be a good idea to stage an event at Lichfield. The sports centre we swam at was attached to the Friary school which had playing fields on site. It had all the facilities to host something like this and provided a great opportunity to raise funds for the club. I’m sure it was much more stressful for everyone to organise than I remember but the event proved a success. It became an annual thing which was great for the club.

As the distances got longer when I got older, I fared less well at the competitions and drifted away from it when I was around 17. I didn’t do another one until I was in my twenties but somehow managed to qualify again for the national championships which were held in Sheffield. I didn’t take it too seriously but it was good fun to do. That was the last one I did. At University I made friends with another member of the swimming squad and found out that he had come sixth at the Corby championships, one position ahead of me. The world’s a small place I guess.

So biathlon was pretty good for me, and might be the event I’ve been most successful at in terms of national standings. However, it’s pretty niche and is not an Olympic event. The search continued.

No, not the winter sport version. Cross country skiing and rifle shooting? In the Midlands where there is two inches of snow every five years? I don’t think so. I’ve done skiing which I will come on to later, but cross country skiing is a different kettle of fish entirely. I’m sure it is fantastic for fitness but it doesn’t look like a lot of fun, although if I was from Norway I’d probably completely disagree.

This type of Biathlon was swimming and running. It certainly isn’t a well-publicised sport and I only heard about it (along with all of my other Lichfield Swimming Club friends) when a leaflet was posted on the swimming club notice board for a competition at Cheslyn Hay, venue to another local swimming club. Given that I was pretty much in to anything sporty, this seemed like a good idea to me so, along with a few others from the club, I entered.

It’s a fairly simple concept. The distances varied by age group, but it was all fairly short stuff. For me at the time, in the twelve and under category it was just 100m swim in the pool and then a 1km run. You did the two events completely separately as opposed to other multi-disciplinary events like triathlon where you did the disciplines consecutively with a transition. So there was generally a fairly long recovery period between the swim and the run which meant you could get changed and warm up again. Sounds a bit tame now looking back.

At that time I got on well with a member of another swimming club called Mark. I’d met him on a few occasions at various open meets and galas and although we often competed against each other, we became friends. He was a slightly faster swimmer than me and had also entered this biathlon. He took great delight in telling me that he was a very good runner and declared he was going to beat me easily. Given that I hadn’t seen him run I had no reason to doubt him.

I’d had a fairly average swim in the morning, and was well down in the rankings after the 100m – you picked up points for your time which would then be added to your run time points to provide your overall score. Mark was a few places before me lining up for the run so I could see how he approached the race. Just to explain, each competitor was set off at 30 second intervals so it was easier for the timekeepers to record the times. It was basically a straight time trial run with you against the clock rather than a bunch start. I must admit I liked this format as you had a competitor to aim at and try and hunt down. Chase the rabbit was my mindset.

Mark was given his countdown from five to one and set off on his run; a 1k lap of the playing fields leisure centre. I was surprised at how fast he went. Whenever I had previously done these types of runs I had always held myself back, not wanting to blow up too soon. What I was watching was a different tactic, Mark was sprinting as fast as he could and attempting to hold on for the whole distance. As I watched him go around the course I wondered whether I could do the same. I wasn’t sure. He kept going, and going, and going right to the end until he crossed the line gasping for air. I was impressed.

As the other competitors were set off in front of me, I got more and more nervous. When it got to my turn, the official put his hand on my shoulder. I got myself ready. He started the countdown, five, four, three, two, one…and took his hand away. I sprinted away as fast as I could. My mum started shouting encouragement as I made my way to the first bend. Following Mark’s example I went as fast as I could, setting my sights on the person in front of me, trying to catch them. My lungs were burning as I continued sprinting. I remember thinking it was a really bad tactic, this was unchartered territory for me. I had never pushed myself this hard, but it felt like the right thing to do. To my complete surprise I managed to keep up the intensity right through the course until I collapsed in a heap over the line. This was my first experience of pushing myself to the limit. It hurt, a lot. My legs were on fire and it took a good few minutes to catch my breath. I distinctly remember my mum coming over and shouting well done. The time I’d clocked was the fastest of the day, by some distance. She was definitely more shocked than I was. I hadn’t told her my tactic so she was panicking that I’d gone off far too quickly. She wasn’t the only one.

As I watched the rest of the runners coming over the line I was watching their splits. No-one was getting close to my time. This was a completely new sensation for me. I’d never been in this kind of position before, I’d always been chasing someone else. It felt great. It felt even better when the last of the competitors came through and I’d still got the fastest split. Mum did a quick calculation of the points and was sure that I’d made the top three but was as surprised as anyone when the results came out and found out that I’d actually won. Winning swimming races at school or within the club was one thing but to win a multi-discipline open event was another. I was pretty chuffed when I got to stand on the podium and collect my winner’s medal and trophy. It didn’t matter to me that this was a little known event, I’d pushed myself as far as I could go and it had worked.

From then on my attitude to competing changed. I felt I could challenge the top guys, particularly when I ran. I had gained a confidence in my running ability that wasn’t there before. It might not be world beating, but I knew I could compete.
I entered more biathlon events after that. I always felt I had opportunities to do well, even if my swim wasn’t a personal best. The kilometre run distance clearly suited me. Not quite a sprint, but long enough to stay fast and leave the true sprinters behind. This is when I gained confidence to run 800 metre races at school flat out. It hurt like hell, but it seemed to work.

Back to the basketball. Every now and then we had a teachers vs students game. This was designed for the teachers to win, at all costs. Our coach ensured that all of the PE staff played, and there was never any danger of them losing. There was a lot of pre-game goading, mainly from the coach who wanted to wind us up as much as possible. Intimidation tactics were deployed relentlessly during practice and Economics lessons. Losing to the students was not an option for them. That would be a serious breach of teacher pride.

Those matches gave us some kind of insight in to what a competitive game with another school would be like. Sure enough, once our coach was satisfied that we had some level of ability and game play to not get completely humiliated, he set up a match with Walton school. This was another level for us entirely, and our coach decided it was about time he gave us some pointers on the rules so that we weren’t all sent off in the first ten minutes. Picking up fouls was pretty natural for us, but they had never really been enforced during our practice sessions. Most of the fouls that we had experienced until then were to do with infringements in the D (the shooting zone). These resulted in free shots to the attacking player who had been foulled, where they could have two attempts to score a basket from the free throw line. Other fouls had not really been part of our games so it came as a bit of a surprise to find out that there were multiple occasions when these could be picked up. Such as contact, double dribbling, travelling etc. If a player picked up five fouls, they were out of the game. This didn’t bode well.

For the match we were presented with our school basketball kit. It was hideous. I don’t know where our coach got them from, but they were dark green with black stripes. This bore no resemblance to the school colours of red and black, so I can only assume he cobbled them together from some local club. Looking like a bunch of badly assorted garden vegetables we took to the court and were given our pre-match motivational speech from the coach. This basically involved a fair few swear words, some comment about tactics but basically the gist was to try and be in their faces as much as possible.

We were 15-0 down within about 3 minutes. It was a shambles. None of us knew how to cope with a team that had clearly been playing together for years, and had skills at a much higher level than us. When we finally managed to score a couple of points, we jumped up and down in delight. To which our coach came running over, sneering at us that we ‘were a bunch of squealing girls’. It may have not been the most motivational comment but it made us all start concentrating on what we could do to actually give the other team some kind of match. I’m not sure what the final score was but it was a hammering, probably something like 70-22 but at least we started putting up a fight once we’d started to get used to the match environment.

We only played one other match against another school, which this time was played away. I was made captain for that one, which I was very proud of. I scored 21 points this time, and as a team we pushed them much closer this time around. We still lost but it was a much better effort. I ended up getting got fouled off, having picked up five offences. I was pretty unhappy about that, but the coach was delighted. We were never going to be anything spectacular, but he was more interested in our passion and fight so he left happy.

I’ve probably made our coach out to be a hard character, but I liked him a lot. We got on very well, and I enjoyed his ruthless competitiveness. It didn’t bother me that this sometimes manifested itself aggressively, that was just his personality and at the end of the day he just wanted everyone to do as well as they could. He loved his sport and always wanted to be the quickest runner or most talented player on the court. I can completely associate with that, and I know if I had been a teacher (heaven forbid) I would have been exactly the same. I went along to his local basketball club a few times and even bought myself some ridiculously large basketball trainers. Honestly, they looked like clown shoes. They had a little pump to inflate them and were designed more like boots to protect your ankles, but they were ridiculous. My mate Jonny took one look at them and wet himself. Quite right too, they were beyond daft. However, I enjoyed playing throughout school and if nothing else, the sport was fantastic for getting fit.
After school I played sporadically at University for fun, but nothing like before. Clearly basketball was not going to be a long term sport for me.

I know what you’re thinking. 5’11’’…Basketball? Really? Well there have been some professional players shorter than six feet tall. Not many, and they all probably grew up in America so the odds weren’t really in my favour. But it was another competitive sport and it looked like fun.

As with the rugby approach, the basketball coach (my future Economics teacher) at the Friary based his selection process on one PE session. He was basically looking for speed, enthusiasm and some kind of competitive streak. Boxes ticked, a few of us started doing basketball training at lunchtimes. Having started quite late at thirteen, our skill levels were pretty bad so he just encouraged us to run around a lot and learn the rules as we went along. Which we did.

Soon we were playing basketball twice a week at lunch times. It was played at a frenetic pace as we really took the ‘run around a lot’ sentiment to heart. We used to come off the court absolutely exhausted and dripping in sweat. I can honestly say it was the most intense workout that we did at the time. The forty-five minute sessions were pretty much non-stop sprinting as we went from one end of the court to another. We slowly got used to the basics and by trial and error we learnt a method of playing that suited us. I took on the position of Guard, which made a lot of sense given I wasn’t the tallest. In my head, this position essentially took on the same role as scrum half or fly half in rugby as you are looking to drive the attack. Most of the time it was looking to get the ball to the tallest or most talented player in an attacking position as quickly as possible so that they could try and score. As most of us weren’t that talented, it ended up going to the tallest players we had. Generally speaking, if they got the ball they would score.

The training sessions would become quite heated at times. The combination of a bunch of teenagers with no idea of the rules, not many skills and a hot indoor court made for a volatile arena. Even though it is supposed to be a non-contact sport, we were always smashing in to each other at full tilt. Our coach did nothing to prevent this, mainly because he was just as competitive as we were but also because he wanted us to have that aggression when we played. He was a talented player and used to run rings around us, much to his own amusement. This added to the frustration for some of the players who would easily get the ball stolen from them by the coach as they were attempting to dribble past.

In one particular session things started to boil over. One of the players, who was not a regular, started to get very annoyed by the fact he kept losing the ball. This ended in a big stand-off with a few of us and him storming off the court. This was shortly followed by a loud smashing sound, which we later discovered was due to him punching a hole through the changing room door. It took him a while to calm down, which we found quite amusing. It all added to the intensity of the sessions.

At this point I hadn’t had a serious injury, or any kind of injury at all. This changed when I picked up two in quick succession. On the first I got an elbow to the face when challenging for a ball in the air. Feeling bits of tooth in my mouth as I came down was a new sensation, but luckily it was only a chip and was easily sorted with a cap by my dentist. The second was slightly worse. As we went along our coach had pointed out to us that there were a few potentially dangerous things that could happen on a basketball court. Most of these involved twisting or flying elbows, but one was seen as a bit of a ‘no no’ when playing. This was known as the ‘Submarine’. It was considered dangerous because it meant that an opposing player was underneath someone while they were either trying to score a basket or just off their feet. This would result in the airborne player becoming upended which could end up with them landing on their neck or head. Now, given we were completely reckless and competitive, this happened much more frequently than it probably should have. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when this happened to me. Craig, who was the other main Guard, managed to Submarine me whilst I was jumping for the ball. I landed on my right forearm with my full weight. I’m not sure whether I heard a crack or not, but for the purposes of high drama I’ll say I did. As there was nothing to see, I didn’t really know whether I had done anything serious or not but within a few minutes I began to feel very nauseous. So I was dispatched to Lichfield A+E.

The A+E at the time was in a very small Hospital, which was really a minor injury clinic and maternity Department. Even though it wasn’t great ending up there, it was never that bad as we knew one of the Senior Nurses who worked there, Mrs Hickinbotham (or Mrs Hicky as she was commonly known). Mrs Hicky was the parent of one of my best friends at the Lichfield Swimming Club, Jane, and I had known her for a very long time. In fact, most of Lichfield knew her as at some point. Much like a local GP she had seen practically everybody either as a patient or family member. She couldn’t walk down the street without someone coming up and chatting to her because she’d either picked stones out of their knees, put plasters on some wound or fixed their broken limbs.

Mrs Hicky gave me the customary ‘what have you done now’ look before sending me for an X-ray. The scan showed that I had a hairline fracture of my forearm. As injuries go it wasn’t massively impressive. The break was clean and would naturally heal over the following weeks, and I would have to wear a sling to protect it. It also meant I couldn’t write for a week or two, which meant I could duck out of school tests until it healed. Result. I didn’t really do the injury many favours over those few weeks. Going to a Wonder Stuff concert and ending up in the mosh pit probably wasn’t on the recommended recovery plan, but they were the band to see at the time and I wasn’t going to miss it. I initially did the sensible thing and stayed at the back of the crowd, but when the concert started I moved forward to get as close to the front as possible. I spent the next two hours being bounced around, jostled, pushed…and I loved it.

A few people had told me that just because I had completed a half marathon the jump to full distance was not straightforward. Pah, couldn’t be that hard. I entered through the ballot and deployed a tried and trusted method of putting a faster finish time of 3 hours and 30 minutes to avoid the popular blocks of four hours plus (the theory being that you had less people putting faster times, and blocks of fifteen minutes were filled up). I was told by letter a few months later that I had secured my place. When you get your entry pack it comes with a suggested training schedule, so I followed that as my weekly routine from five months out.

Training was going well until I started developing a sore foot with about six weeks to go. Thinking it was just some kind of bruising I attempted to carry on training, but it wasn’t getting any better. I ended up back at the sports physiotherapists who diagnosed it as a metatarsal stress fracture. I hadn’t even heard of this type of injury before David Beckham famously had a problem with it. Complete rest was diagnosed for a minimum of two months. Luckily I had one deferral with my London entry, so moved my slot to the following year. Maybe this marathon lark was harder than I thought.

I duly rested up, and picked the training schedule back up later that year. This time around my training went uninterrupted and I looked forward to the day of the race. The furthest run I’d completed prior to race day was nineteen miles, which I considered to be close enough. I knew the race would be tough as I’d be stepping in to the unknown, but I felt confident I was running well.

It felt good to be part of something as big as the London marathon and I’d drummed up some sponsorship to help with the motivation. I’d chosen the County Air Ambulance as my charity, and managed to raise a good enough sum of money from friends, family and work colleagues. I travelled down to London the day before to pick up my race bag from the event fair. This was an event in itself. There were hundreds of exhibitors and loads of activities going on to support the race. It really was an impressive set up. After registering and collecting my bag of goodies I headed to a friend’s house to relax and carb load with the customary pre-race pasta. I went to bed feeling nervous but excited.

It was an early start to get the bus to the appropriate point with the thousands of other competitors making their way across London. The weather was great. It was dry and sunny, with the usual early morning chill of April. Keeping warm and hydrated was the priority before the start, although it’s a fine balance between drinking and needing the toilet every 5 minutes particularly when you’re nervous. The amount of people taking a leak was ridiculous, there were some sights I didn’t really want to see as people avoided the portaloo queues.

It seemed to take forever, but eventually everyone was lined up and the start gun fired. Due to the amount of people it took a few minutes to get over the start line, and I was off. It’s hard not to get carried away in these events, and do the sensible thing by running at your own pace. I definitely went a little bit faster than I intended to for the first few miles. A fatal error. With the temperature creeping up and my adrenaline kicking in, the slightly faster pace started to take it’s toll at eleven miles. I felt a slight twinge of cramp in my right calf, and instantly knew this was going to be a problem. I started taking extra fluid on board at each drinks station, combining water and energy drinks but the damage had already been done. Cramp was here to stay.

The atmosphere was incredible the whole way round. From the very start there were crowds lining the streets, shouting support. Reading that it was a good idea to put your name on the t-shirt so that people could shout your name as you went past, I’d put my nickname, Boney, on mine. (I’d ended up with this nickname by default when a swimming club coach called my brother it, and it didn’t stick. Not really sure why…Stoney, Boney…but I do know it has nothing to do with being thin, although I am and it is highly appropriate). Having my name visible to all worked great in the first half of the race when things were going well. Shouts of encouragement of ‘go Boney’ (or Bonnie as one person called me) were replaced by ‘stop walking Boney!’ when my legs were cramping like mad. I took to moving away from the side of the road to the middle of the pack to avoid the shouts.

After the eleven mile point the twinges in my calves became more frequent and it didn’t take long before my legs started properly cramping. I stopped a few times to stretch and try and shake it out, but the effect would only be shortlived. Before the race I had also heard about the notorious cobbled section that can affect your running. On entering the cobbled streets I promptly fell over, embarrassingly incurring shouts of ‘man down, man down’. Picking myself up, I got going again and fell over a few metres later. This was not turning out to be a good day. By the time I got to the nineteen mile mark and met up with my mates that had come along to cheer me on, I was in all sorts of trouble. ‘I’m in bits’ I spluttered when I saw them. Rob, who had done a marathon previously, just pushed me away and told me to keep going. Tough love, but to be fair he knew there was no point giving sympathy with 7 miles left to go.
The cramp got worse along the Embankment and I was reduced to a slow jog. This culminated in me cramping up in both calves and quads, making me fall backwards like a frozen corpse on to the floor in agony. Two St Johns Ambulance volunteers ambled over and enquired if I was alright. ‘Can you give me some salt tables, or pain killers? I’m cramping like hell’ I squealed. ‘Sorry love, we can’t give you anything like that. Would you like a massage or a boiled sweet?’ came the reply. Realising that this was the best I was going to get I accepted the offer and they did their best to get me back on my feet. Clearly the boiled sweet was about as useful as a chocolate teapot, but at least it had sugar. I was not only cramping in my legs, it seemed like my whole body wanted to join in. I even got cramp in my ear for god’s sake! I didn’t even think that was possible.

I was eventually helped to my feet and got a gentle round of slow-hand-clap, empathetic applause from the people who had clearly been watching my cramp nightmare unfold. Waving feebly and smiling with a grimace I hobbled away to try and finish the final few miles. A combination of walking and slow jogging saw me get past Buckingham Palace and down the Mall to the finish line. I’ve never been as happy to finish anything in my life. I finished in 4 hours and 31 minutes, a lot slower than I had originally hoped. However, marathons are not exactly intended to be easy so I’m still proud that I completed it. I can’t recall getting overtaken by a rhino or a womble, so it could have been worse.

For years I tried to re-enter the London Marathon to atone for my crampathon, but never got accepted in to the ballot again and couldn’t face committing to raising thousands for a charity place. It’s probably a good thing. And anyway, clearly marathon running was not going to be an Olympic wildcard. Another one knocked off the list.

I think it’s fair to say that I’m probably best suited to running. Middle to long distance running to be more precise. I’m definitely not a sprinter.

I discovered I could run fairly fast at primary school. Some PE lessons involved running laps of the school as a kind of mini cross country race. I always did pretty well, often finishing amongst the fastest. I got more and more competitive with these type of races and didn’t like losing. I carried this through to secondary school, also during PE lessons. We sometimes had to run the dreaded 1500 metres, which everyone hated. A few of us were fairly competitive with each other, but I wasn’t the fastest. I discovered after a while that 800 metres was my preferred distance.

The only time I really did any structured athletics events was in the summer, in the build-up to sports day. We used to do laps of the track that was marked out with white paint on the school playing field. I always got really nervous when racing on the track. Something about it just made my stomach knot up. I think it was probably because I knew it was going to really hurt, and something about doing laps was psychologically quite tough. I always preferred cross country events for that reason. Not being able to see the finish was somehow far more easy to cope with mentally. I ended up breaking the school record for the 800m four years in a row, which I am proud of. I competed only once in an athletics meet, coming fourth as I recall. I just didn’t enjoy it enough to train properly for it. Swimming and rugby took up most of my time anyway, so there wasn’t really scope to add another sport on top. Even though it was the one I was naturally better at. Running with a ball in your hand and being part of a team was much more appealing. Apart from the short summer athletics interlude and training for rugby, the only other pure running I did was in biathlon competitions…but more of that later.

Now I was in the Post Knee Injury era, running became a more regular pastime. There didn’t seem to be a lot of options left, so I began regularly going for runs when I could. During my third year of University I took part in an Erasmus Exchange programme to Lille University. I was the only student from Loughborough to go, and I discovered that my studies during that year had absolutely no bearing on my overall degree. This was perfect, I could concentrate on speaking French and having a good time. I’d studied French at A-Level, but was never particularly confident speaking it so I saw this as the best opportunity to work on it. It couldn’t have worked out better in terms of immersing myself in French life. On arriving at the university on the weekend before term started I found out I was in an all French hall and was sharing with a French roommate. This was pretty daunting, and my Dad looked like he knew what I was thinking when he said his goodbyes after dropping me off. He later admitted that I looked like I was some kind of terrified stranded puppy when he drove away. He wasn’t wrong. I had no choice, it was sink or swim. The first week was quite tough, and my roommate was a proper tool but I think I learnt more about speaking in French in that first week than I had over the seven years I’d studied at school.

I went to as many Economics classes as I could during the week (and there were a lot in comparison to my 9 hours a week at Loughborough. It was almost full time at Lille, which was great for my language development), and loved the environment. When I heard the first English voice at the hall of residence dining area a few days later, I practically threw my dinner on the floor to rush over and introduce myself. It was a huge relief to know there was someone else there I could talk to in my own language. Greg and I got on pretty well and he introduced me to some people from Hull University that he’d met, Kat, Kirsty and Emma. We quickly became good mates, and it was good to jump out of French life to socialise with English friends in the evenings and at weekends when most of the French students disappeared back home. Don’t get me wrong, the French speaking part was great but there is definitely a big cultural difference between the French and English which made it hard to connect on a social level. Benny Hill is one of their favourite comedy shows. I rest my case.

The whole year was amazing, I had such a good time. I definitely developed as a person and became much more self-sufficient. It was by far the best year at University because it was so different to anything I’d experienced thus far. I didn’t do a lot of physical exercise that year as there was far too much going on but I went for the odd run, and that was enough at that time.

I joined the athletics club when I returned to Loughborough University in my final year. There wasn’t really any expectation about competing at a serious level but I was curious to know how I would get on if I put some structured training in. The winter season basically involved a lot of cross country runs and some track work to build endurance. I joined in the middle to long distance training sessions. At the same time I was there, Paula Radcliffe was also a student and obviously a member of the athletics club. One Tuesday session involved a club run of around eight miles around the town, and on one occasion, as we all left, Paula was still chatting to the coaches. At about five miles she came bombing past me, and by the time I reached the clubhouse she’s got changed and left. Different level altogether.

I took part in a couple of cross country BUSA events over the winter which were good to be involved in. I was never in any danger of troubling the fast runners, but it was nice to focus on some kind of racing. As the training started to intensify on the track, it soon became obvious that my knee couldn’t cope with the kind of sessions that were being set. So I drifted away from the athletics and just stuck to more recreational running.

After graduating I didn’t really do anything structured until I entered the Reading half marathon in 1999. I was living down that way as I’d got a job at a company in Bracknell as part of their European Accounting Centre. I had no intention of being an accountant, but I had learnt from a colleague that I was temping with at the time that they were recruiting French speakers. This was part of a work shadowing project to migrate all accounting functions to the UK head office. My colleague had been recruited in to the German wave, and suggested I apply for the French one. So I did. I successfully went through the selection process and recruited in to the French transition team. This meant a 3 week induction programme followed by a four month workshadowing period at the French Headquarters in Cergy, a short train ride from where we would be staying in Paris. All of the recruits in to the transition programme were recent university graduates, with language skills as the primary requirement. As far as first permanent jobs go, this couldn’t have been better. Twenty university graduates dropped in to Paris for four months with a salary and expense account …we couldn’t believe our luck. Needless to say, the assignment was like being a student but with cash. We made the most out of our time, and enjoyed the nightlife of Paris as much as we could.

Reality hit hard when the transition period came to an end. We found ourselves back working in Bracknell doing the day job, Paris a long distant memory. I had done the odd run around some of the local parks in Paris whilst we were there, but it was an occasional thing and probably more designed to cure a hangover than anything else. On getting back to England, having something fun to focus on was required. Hence the application to run the Reading half marathon.

I got myself in to some kind of shape over the winter by doing increasingly longer runs and practising some of the race route. By the time of the race I was feeling good. It was always a fairly well attended event as it was in March just before the London Marathon. A lot of athletes used it as a warm up, and some elite runners also competed. It was the first longer distance event I’d entered. I’d done a couple of 10ks here and there, but this was my first attempt at anything with the word ‘marathon’ in it. I had a good race, and finished in 1 hour and 31 minutes. I was pretty pleased with that. Although the sight of one of the top Kenyan finishers running back along the route when I had three miles to go reminded me just how fast the top runners go. Still, I enjoyed it. So much so that I applied for the London Marathon the following year.