The Challenge

I’m not quite sure where this idea came from. I’ve been doing a bit of swimming, as a bit of a recovery whilst trying to get fit after ‘the accident’ and I wondered how fast I was. I went through a period a few years ago when I swam a fair bit, pretty fast, but I wasn’t very good at keeping records. How fast was I? Not fast enough for competition, that I know, but compared to an Olympic athlete, at the top of their game… I wonder how fast.

So, whilst drifting up and down the local pool I had a thought about what it would be like to be overtaken by an Olympian. By the next length I had formed my plan. One full year, 10 Olympic events, and my aim is to be half as good as the World or Olympic record in each of them. Some are going to be, I think, a piece of cake. Some are going to be pretty testing. Most are going to be a real eye opener into just how amazingly good the best in the world really are. It’s just a shame I didn’t come up with the plan last year!

I’ve just hit 41 years. The last 18 months have been pretty inactive. If this is my mid-life crisis, then it’s probably about as dangerous as the Harley I ought to go out and buy. The great thing about this though, is that in another 5, 10, 20 years I think I’ll be able to go out and do it all again. That’s the real challenge – not to get half as good as 10 Olympians, but to stay as good as them!

But, before planning 20 years into the future, I have to first choose my 10 events and, for some of them, get into training. For some of them I’m going to have to do some real coaching. I’ve no idea how far I could throw a javelin, but 45 meters sounds a long long way to me!

The aim is to achieve one record each month for the rest of the year (and beyond).

Wish me luck!