Amy's first thoughts on the gold challenge

I have a photo of my first use of new wetsuit (yes my bum certainly does look big in it!) which I’ll upload so here’s the first entry of the musings of a modern pentathlete  to go with it.

If I’m honest I was sort of hoping to get Modern Pentathlon in the ‘random allocation’ of our team’s sports because, let’s face it, you just have to be a little bit better than mediocre in five sports and you could make the Olympic team because anyone who’s any good at any of the sports wouldn’t bother with the other four. And of course if I manage to complete the 5 sports I  get a bonus 20 points for completing a 6^th sport without having to do anything extra! So how is my attempt for Olympic mediocrity going, sport by sport?

Athletics (distance) – going well, I’ve opted for a 10k run as I’ve calculated that this is the distance that will get me most bonus points for the time taken. So far have done a couple of (very hilly) training runs about that distance, actually about 9.2k but I only gave up because I got bored!

Swimming – the pool option seemed a bit easy so I’ve opted for open water swimming which means a 5k or 10k swim.  I made a fantastic start to my training programme by managing to buy online a bargain ex-hire swimming wetsuit which despite taking about half an hour to get on actually fitted, however I then failed miserably to submit an entry form for my first real open water swim, 1 mile sea swim at Teignmouth. But I thought I must start somewhere so went to Broadsands instead to test out the new wetsuit – at least getting dressed is improving, already down to 15 minutes! The wetsuit worked, it was very warm and incredibly buoyant, in fact so much so that a very peculiar (especially for me) lightness-of-bottom made it quite difficult to swim breast stroke. My goggle elastic was suffering from being quite old and saggy (sounds familiar) so they leaked a lot making it also quite difficult to swim front crawl, but with an occasional unconventional combination of crawl legs and breast stroke arms I managed to get to the 5 knot marker, accompanied by Pete, Jasmine and Aaron in the back-up kayak to reassuringly  “stop mummy from drowning”. The fact that they hadn’t paddled at all to get to the marker should have been a warning sign that getting back wasn’t going to be much fun and indeed with the wind, tide and waves right in my face it wasn’t! But I made it and on reaching the beach was keen to know how far I’d managed to go so approached the very knowledgeable-looking Torbay Beach Team to ask how far out the 5 knot marker is. “Why are you going to swim to it?” they asked. Now I’m sure a faster thinker than me could have witheringly pointed out that I was already dripping wet, shivering, goggles still on my head and clutching a cup of tea as though my life depended on it, but my witty rejoiner? - “I just did”.  Anyway after some thought and accumulation of their collective knowledge of wind, tide etc they estimated I had swum ¾ of a mile ….on further questioning by Pete later it emerged that it was actually based on the fact that it looked like a Par 5! But I’m sticking with ¾ mile which doesn’t seem bad for a first go….although I think 5k will be quite enough for the real thing. Next time – a 1 mile sea swim at Broadsands in aid of Devon Air Ambulance on the 18^th Sept (entry form already in the post this time!).

Shooting – I won a water pistol fight against 4 under-7s last week, does that count?

Equestrian – investigating how many Piriteze it takes to overdose

Fencing – umm.

Amy

http://www.justgiving.com/queeniegold

photos on the next post

why we're doing this

In September this year (2011) My mum died from secondary tumours following an iniital diagnosis of breast cancer 8 years ago. During those eight years she went through 9 courses of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery and suffered numerous side effects, we did out best to help her throught this and now we'd like to help others like her.
The last eight years weren't all doom and gloom there was lots and lots of fun, games and laugher too leaving us all with many happy memories. And it is in this spirit that I have joined the "Dangerous Girls plus 1" team to take part in the Gold Challenge.
As a team we have to complete 30 sports over the next year (to be finished before the opening ceremony of the olympics begins), our team consists of Me, Amy, Pete, Kirsten, Jackie and Charlie, we have each been randomly allocated 5 of the 30 sports. However, in addition to completing my 5 sports (hockey, athletics - sprint, handball, triathlon and weightlifting) I intend to try and complete all 30 sports.
Progress to date has been very very slow, I'm not sure that three legged racing while drinking beer is ideal training. To complete each challenge we are required to undertake at least 3 hours training and/or compete in the event, I expect my completions to include elements of both of these, wait and see exactly how this is Accomplished
So that is what I'm going to be doing my part is tough, your part is really really easy, just get your credit card out and donate too Breakthrough Breastcancer via my page.
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.
So please dig deep and donate now.
http://www.justgiving.com/queeniegold

First sport - Tennis

Like any sports mad child of the seventies and eighties, my favourite sport was tennis, at least for two weeks of the year during Wimbledon. I was lucky enough that our house had loads of outdoor space and a huge gable end wall where I could hammer a tennis ball for hours on end. My determination was reinforced by the fact that British male tennis players at that time were absolutely rubbish. The names just trip off the tongue, Mark Cox, Buster Mottram anybody? The Lloyd  Brothers who apparently were good at doubles, which I assumed meant that they got knocked out in the second round of a tournament as opposed to the first. Indeed it seemed that I could not fail to be no 1 in the country if I could hit the ball three times in a row

Being from Torbay we have had some fairly good tennis players, the most famous of which was Sue Barker, who was actually very good and went on to win the French Open. She was also quite nice and very polite to me when I met her. “Ith Melitha in” she asked. It soon became apparent that she meant Melissa the owner of the Café I was working in during my school holidays, but at that time Sue still had a gap in her front teeth that you could have driven a bus through. A situation remedied when she began her career as a television present.

Anyway my quest for male no1 status hit the buffers on my first appearance on a real tennis court, when I realised that just belting the ball as hard as you can was fine against a wall, but a little more finesse was required when actually playing. Another drawback was the seemingly upper middle class domination of the sport, it seemed one would need at least a million pounds in the bank to join a local club. So consequently my tennis career became confined to hitting the ball against that wall for two weeks every year.

Until the Gold challenge that is! The thought of earning 20 points for entering a tournament inspired me to enter Amy (My partner) and I in the Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta tennis tournament mixed doubles open, despite neither of us being able to play the game. A colleague of Amy’s, Kirsten, was drafted in to coach and after many weeks of hard work we had mastered the art of spinning the racquet to decide who served first, how to get the net the right height and sometimes how to catch a ball with one already in your hand!

The big day came and such was Amy’s confidence that she had held a sweepstake to see how many points(Not games note) we would get. The consensus seemed to be not many.

We were playing a young brother and sister partnership who both seemed to be in their late teens. They looked extremely nervous, a situation soon resolved in the pre match knock up, where it became obvious that not only could we not play the game, but at times totally unaware where we should stand.

After a titanic struggle I managed to tie up my trainers properly and the match commenced. A short time later the match finished with Amy and I ecstatic. Against all the odds we had won one game and twenty points in a thrillingly close 6-0 6-1 defeat.

Our opponents were fairly perplexed with our lap of honour but we explained the situation to them, and they wished us well for our remaining challenges.

My love for tennis has now been restored and other than Andy I can’t see anybody to stop me becoming British no1.

Pete