It’s going to be sore, this lark!

 Wonderful words of encouragement from The Sun‘s Gordon Smart as I return from a work trip abroad!

 But you know what…he’s right. 

 It’s getting more and more obvious to us all that the prospect of this Olympic Triathlon is now becoming a reality. It’s all well and good calling up a couple of pals and asking if they fancy it but to actually get on with it and train HARD for it is not that easy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving working with James our personal trainer. The results are fantastic but it’s the fact that shirking away from the gym or training has a massive effect on your progress. I have just returned from a work trip abroad and for the first time in my life I walked into the hotel gym actually wearing my training gear ready for a good session. However, watching the over preened fellas and lasses on the treadmills made me vomit… it just aint for me. I stood watching in non-matching shorts, a T-shirt, black socks (forgot my white sports ones!) and trainers and just did a complete 180 and went back to my hotel room! 

You see, I haven’t been to a gym since 1988, when, as a key member of the Manchester All Stars Youth team(American Football) I was told to go work on my strength conditioning…some things never change! But it was during one of these visits that I dropped a bar bell on my foot and in doing so never ever entered a gym again. It’s the prospect of gym embarrassment that has kept me away for all these years. That’s why I turned around and left, I couldn’t do it, I could not walk in and join the beautiful people working on their toned abs and perfectly sculpted quads. Forget it… I looked like a proper nerd! (IN BLACK SOCKS!!!)

So what followed was something Rocky would be proud of… I turned every piece of furniture in my hotel room into a piece of gym equipment. The desk chair became a bench for tri dips, the bed a gym ball for ‘The Plank’ and other core exercises, the balcony rail became a dips bar and the Phillip Starck chair became my dumb bell…bloody heavy! 

And it worked, every morning I worked out and after having all the right techniques drilled into me by James the results have been fantastic. It goes to show that if you use the right technique when exercising it don’t matter what you use to achieve great results. I think Smarty and I are lucky to have a total BEAST of an instructor looking after us, it’s the only way we are gonna feel happy crossing the finish line come Aug 6th!!!!