Show Me The Money!

Friday, August 26, 2005

After much fiddling about, I now have a Just Giving page through which you can all donate your hard-earned cash to Sobell House.

For the moment, I have slipped into a post-triathlon celebratory alcoholic binge. I’m going to France to play some golf next weekend, the end of that trip will hopefully signal a return to training as I’m hoping to run next year’s London marathon. The day I return from my holiday (5th September), Martin Keown is hopefully going to be launching the Sobell Raffle at the St Giles Fair in Oxford. If I can’t make it back from the airport in time to do it myself, Kev Game from Sobell House has promised to schmooze on my behalf with regard to the Olympic football match.

This coming (Bank Holiday) Monday signals the end of the first year of this challenge. Of 136 events, I will have completed just eleven. I should probably be slightly downhearted about that, but in all honesty I’m anything but. Several of the more taxing ones are out of the way (the 20km and 50km walks and the triathlon stand out) and the plans for a lot of the others are snowballing pretty much as I hoped they would.

Next summer, I hope to rent the Iffley Road track (scene of Sir Roger Bannister’s running of the first ever sub-four-minute mile) for a couple of weekends and stage a pair of Ultimate Olympian athletics meets. These will be open to all comers for a small fee (£5 an event probably) and I will do my best to entice some proper athletes along to help us gauge just how rubbish we are.

I plan to organise a couple of swimming galas along similar lines, and with any luck include the diving events on the same days so that all entrants get the added bonus of a good laugh at my expense.

Lots of you have been beavering away on my behalf with your contacts in various sports, and for that I thank you most sincerely – from former Olympic fencers to experts in shooting and rowing, the offers of help have been flowing in thick and fast.

If you’ve got an idea for an event, e-mail me. If you’ve got a friend who knows someone who has his or her hair cut by the mother of a former Olympian, e-mail me. If you want to wish me luck or hurl abuse at me, e-mail me. Thank you all for your help so far and for keeping me from abandoning my pursuit of the ridiculous.