"If you have a body, you ARE an athlete" - Bill Bowerman

Hi everyone! Since my last attempt, I've had many ideas jump into my head for exactly what to 'bang on' about in the next blog post. However, just like the British sunshine, those ideas have often packed their bags and disappeared before I'd even had a chance to experience and enjoy them properly! However, there's one particular idea that's remained as pertinent as the chances of rainfall during April (bit of a weather theme developing here...clearly channelling my 'inner Michael Fish'). It's the very idea that completely took over my entire weekend recently. One which was, no doubt, exactly the same scenario for the hundreds of thousands of other red-nosed friends, family and fans who lined the sun-soaked streets of London on the Sunday morning of the 22d April. Standing and watching the 40,000 everyday heroes pound through the iconic 26.2 miles of tarmac was nothing short of spectacular. Witnessing every single emotional state imaginable played out in 'real time' as thousands struggled, strived and shuffled their way through Central London to transform themselves from 'Average Joes' to sporting superstars was simply breathtaking.

In an often elitist world of sport and fitness, many people find themselves marginalised; cast aside and substituted to allow those with more confidence or 'longer track records' to jostle for position. Sport can prove to be a rather intimidating world in which to attempt to live. You only have to cast your minds back to your school days to relive the anxious horror of anticipation when a (somewhat naive) PE teacher would announce that the two school captains would be 'picking teams' for the next sporting endeavour. Instantly, this decision left many of the children terrified, nervous and sick: it's that stomach churning fear of 'being picked last', if - in some cases - even picked at all! Naturally, a decision like that sounded like beautiful, operatic music to the ears of the 'sporty kids', who'd seductively swan their way through the nervous crowd to start flirtatiously fluttering their eyes at the lads or lasses they knew would announce their names first. At school at least, being 'good at sport' gave children a license: an ever-present injection of confidence and social currency. It didn't really matter if quadratic equations just looked like Japanese symbols, so long as you were picked in midfield for the after school, semi-final showdown with Sweet Valley High at 4pm (loved that show). As unfair and unjust as it was, most children could quite comfortably survive the pitfalls and potholes of school life as long as they 'made the teams'. This all-too-often left those who struggled to catch the tennis balls, or perform the lay-ups, or demonstrate 'the butterfly' socially-broken: completely skint when it came to that aforementioned currency amongst their peers. Cue lower levels of confidence, fewer friendships and diminished respect if sport simply wasn't accessible for you.

Now, I'm obviously being deliberately sweeping with this theory, as it clearly isn't and wasn't the case for all children (unless you happened to have grown up in an Olympic Village in the East Germany during the early 1970s...a time where certain schools could swap shreddies for steroids....'allegedly'). Of course, for many, many children, it didn't matter a single jot whether you enjoyed success in sport, as social currency could be afforded in many other ways. However, I'm more than confident in saying that I know I'm talking to lots of people up and down the country to whom this very much applied. In fact, in a personal note, I can still recall the exact moment that I appeared to have 'found my voice' in secondary school...the day I finished first in the Year 7 Cross Country trials. Until then, I was very much swallowed up by the crowds. I had gotten nowhere NEAR the Hollywood status of the starting XI for the football team. In fact, if the try-outs had been an X-Factor audition, I would've been one of those plucky souls who got booed off the stage strangling after one note...only to be called back to 'perform' on a results show and be laughed at like the bearded lady from a Victorian freak-show! (the sweaty lad who worked in a chicken factory and 'nailed' both parts of Barbie Girl reluctantly springs to mind).

Alas, for me, had it not been for those 6 or so minutes of legging it around the school fields (slightly) faster than anyone else on a Tuesday afternoon, I too would've been cast aside and left to rot on the sporting sidelines for the rest of my school days. I was clearly one of the lucky ones; after that minor victory, I found my way onto the school team and grew massively in confidence from that moment on.

But what about those who didn't find their 6 minutes of fickle fame at school? Those who walked up nervously to the blue-tac'd team-sheets but never found their surname scrawled in biro? For those unlucky sods, the world of sport might as well have been on Pluto: they were as far removed from it as conceivably possible. Instead, they were left to watch in admiration from the sidelines, knowing that participation was only for the gifted, for the elites and for the chosen few.

It is exactly this mentality and self-chastising notion that can cling to children like glue and remain prominent through to adulthood. As they journey their way through teenage years and eventually become an adult, sport remains an unassailable and cruel mirage. The very thought of it still leaves thousands up and down the country feeling nauseous and inadequate. Suddenly, it's the 'office five-a-side league' or the Monday Night Netball match that's proving a step too far, giving many that same sick feeling of being marginalised and left out. As with school, these people are left with little-to-nothing to offer in the high-stakes world of post-match banter amongst their colleagues. They're left to provide half-smiles in the sweaty staffroom as the 'likely-lads' return as heroes from the lunch time kick-a-bout and gloat like starstruck teenagers over who supplied the most assists at the local recreation ground. They're cruelly left out of the WattsApp group for the upcoming Office Hockey tournament and destined to wonder what might have been if only their hand-eye-coordination wasn't as "substandard" as Mr Morris had made them believe it was during their fateful Year 9 PE report. 

However, there is an answer. There is a ray of light for the all-too-often marginalised understudy of the sporting drama. A key that will and does open up the box and provide a golden ticket into the exclusive members club of sporting success...that answer was displayed in all of its shining glory as I stood in awe on that Sunday and witnessed sporting miracles of a biblical nature take place in front of my illuminated eyes. The London Marathon: a 26.2 mile monstrosity of human courage, discipline and self-belief is, without a shadow of a doubt, a wonderful example of what TRUE sporting greatness REALLY looks like. As I stood at the 23 mile marker, I witnessed pain, heartache, exhaustion and people reaching the limits of their physical capabilities. However, I also saw euphoria: everyday, honest people crossing the threshold of what they once thought of as impossible. These many thousands of people had, quite simply, transcended. They'd shed their skin as the quiet, unassuming mouse in the corner of the HR department and evolved into giants of the sporting stage. They had put-to-one-side the preconceived idea that 'sport wasn't for them' and, instead, had conquered their very own Everest.

All of a sudden, the shame and regret of being kept out of the Year 10 Rugby team seemed almost laughable, as these athletic heroes marched like Roman Soldiers past where I humbly stood and inched royally towards the finish line by Buckingham Palace. They deserved every single syllable of praise and encouragement shouted and sprayed by the thousands of awestruck onlookers as they pushed and punished their bodies in pursuit of the much coveted and so-deserved finisher's medal and T-shirt...

My only hope is that every single one of those fascinating heroes of London wore their shiny new medal with pure pride...and marched straight past the office five-a-side team or company-netball-squad feeling 10 metres tall. As a Personal Trainer, I know first hand just how much toil, pain and sheer dedication pours into getting the body ready and robust enough to tackle such as gargantuan task as that of completing a marathon. It's a relentless and single-minded pursuit that envelopes your entire existence for months on end. It's late nights training in the wind, the rain, the cold and often after a shattering day at work. It's the frustration of limping-like-a-loser over to the tube station every Monday morning after yet another dreaded 'Sunday-Long-Run'. Therefore, it's with such passion and vigour that I proudly announce that every single human being who was brave enough to toe that line on Sunday 22nd April is a bonafide and forever standing LEGEND and GIANT of the sporting world...Now don't forget to write that in your next PE report, Mr Morris.