A couple of weeks ago I had
a phone call from a young woman who told me that she was student on a film
course in Brighton and wondered if I would be able to help out as part of a
project on the course she was taking. I gathered that it was basically about
older people keeping up with sport for health fitness or whatever. I told her
that it sounded like fun and that if her fellow students wanted to after she
spoke to them about her idea, that I was more than happy to give some of my time
to it. I know from my own experience in life that if you want help with
something it is always best to ask a busy person.
That call grew into a flutter
of emails and then a request to have a person to person chat. Amazingly she
also send a copy of a letter to say that
she was doing the course that she had told me about, very professional and
understanding.
Yesterday there were texts;
about trains and times and directions and finally in the late morning Kathy
Azopardi arrived on my doorstep, having already dismantled and neatly folded
her Brompton Bike so that it could be brought into the house rather than left
at risk outside.
Having made a cuppa, we sat
down across the table in the window and she told me more about what their plan involved
and then asked questions about my training and my lifestyle. Bless the woman
for her dedication, since I understand that the finished work will only be a
matter of minutes after several sessions that would be on the horizon to gather
what they wanted.
Over the years I have been
involved in other missions of this kind but have to say that I felt that we got
on like a house well on fire and the
interview and all my information and offerings were the greatest fun to share.
She wanted to see our turbo room! Now I can tell you that that is not
everybody’s idea of heaven. Three racing bikes set up on turbo trainers in the
box room of a terraced house. Towels covering the floor over the carpet for
obvious reasons, a TV bracketed on to the wall in the corner and all the walls
covered in triathlon photos.
She asked about other
coverage in magazines etc. She had already found bits on the internet; I dug
out piles of old magazines that I had been threatening to light the fire with
since recently, I had begun to wonder what I was keeping them for on one of the
last occasions that I had a sort out of our sporting mess, accumulated over
26-27 years in the triathlon. So just for the moment I was pleased that I had
not taken them to the fireplace.
Sometimes interviews can be
hard when the person has no knowledge to base their questions on but that was
certainly not the case with Kathy, she had done her homework. We never stopped
talking and it was an easy comfortable conversation.
Toward the end of what must
have been more than two hours she confessed that she was thinking about trying
a triathlon herself, maybe as a special step to mark her fortieth birthday. I
asked her when that would be and she said (I think) this coming December. I had
to laugh as I told her that according to British Triathlon Age Group guidelines
that your age is whatever you are on December 31st and so she is
already forty in my sporting eyes and I think there was a slight widening of
her eyes!
This is a woman who rode her
bike to meet me and of course all my fellow triathletes will know that being
fairly strong cyclist is an excellent place to start from. I don’t think that
running is unknown to her either or swimming.
Talk about, ‘Said the Spider
to Fly’. Nothing pleases me more than finding somebody that could possibly get
to love my sport as much as I do. She already looks like an athlete for goodness sake and I know from this couple of hours that she is very much
her own person and Is not short of determination.
We will be working together
now and then over the next month or so. Maybe it will be the start of a firm sporting
friendship. I hope so.
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