Faster, fitter, further.

Also around this time I decide to get fitter. The 30 yard walk from my desk the coffee machine is the most exercise I got each day. I had become so fat that one day a young uniformed officer approached me in the obvious belief that I had the physique of a Police Federation Representative, or Fed Rep as they are known. Before I could stop him the constable reeled off a long list of wrongdoings on his shift. It was a fascinating tale involving a tangled web of love triangles, sexual deviancy, bullying, sexism, homophobia and abuse of a police dog.

I listened intently whilst making copious notes. This stuff would be dynamite when I got round to writing my novel. Satisfied that I had drained every salacious detail out of the whistle-blower I shook his hand and left him with the standard Fed Rep’s promise:

‘Leave it with me. I’ll look into it and get back to you.’

Naturally, I was tempted to maintain the pretence of being a Fed Rep. In just half an hour I had been privy to some really juicy gossip. There must be dozens more officers with tales to tell. Enough for several novels and maybe even a screenplay.

Inviting as this thought was, the meeting had also served to tell me it was time to do something about my lack of fitness and weight problem. I was already formulating a mental list of challenges for my gap year and some of them would require me to be fit and agile. And then there was the question of my karma.

I had never in my life been in possession of a large pot of money. Life had somehow conspired to ensure that whenever I reached a situation where I might begin to acquire wealth some unforeseen circumstance would come along and deprive me of it. Happily, it worked the other way too. At times when I was faced with huge financial pressures such as when I got divorced or when my children were young and I had large bills for childcare, the money just seemed to be there and I never got into debt. The laws of the cosmos seemed to be somehow in control of my bank balance.

When I retired I would receive a very nice lump sum. More money than I had possessed in my entire life. How would the cosmos react? To me the answer was obvious. I would die.

Not only was the clock ticking down to retirement, it was ticking down to death too. I would receive the cheque for my lump sum, cheer loudly and promptly drop dead. How annoying was that?

Something had to be done. The cosmos must be cheated. I had to reduce the chances of imminent death.

I’d successfully lost weight before but the cycle was always the same. I’d join a local slimming club; realise I was the only man there; decide which woman I’d most like to have sex with (if she reached her target weight, obviously); try hard for 3 months; get bored of hearing how Tracey had managed to lose another pound this week; go to the class just to get to get weighed; decide that four quid week just to get weighed is a bit steep; weigh myself and save four quid a week; gradually put back all the weight I’d lost plus a bit more for luck.

To break the cycle I opted to go for an online slimming club. One that allowed me to type away ad infinitum to my personal diet guru about how I’d managed to lose a pound this week, or how it’s been an emotional time and I’ve been comforting eating and expect advice and counselling in return. One that not only provides me with a menu every week but even converts it into a shopping list.

The downside is you receive messages from fellow fatties with names like ‘Can’tstopeatingchips’ or ‘BurgersRme54’. But if you ignore them or lie about how easily the pounds are falling off they soon go away and leave you alone.

In my experience dieting, or healthy eating, will only take you so far. The pounds drop off steadily and then an impasse is reached. There’s only one way past it. Exercise.

I have never liked gyms. According to a well known medical magazine, 80 percent of people with gym memberships don’t use them. There must be a universal law that says the desire to stay in and watch TV is inversely proportional to the frequency with which the gym is visited, until staying in reaches 100% and visits equal zero. And yet whenever I have gone to the gym there’s always someone on the machine I want to be on.

But what if you can have both? Stay in by the TV and go to the gym? Say hello to the Wii Fit. What better way to gain the physique of an Olympic athlete than by pretending to hula-hoop or by ski-jumping in your own front room? Except of course it doesn’t quite work that way and breaking out the balance board for a yoga session soon becomes as difficult and repetitive as going to the gym.

Fortunately, I had an epiphany. I was jogging around my front room whilst my on screen avatar made his way through a nice park, waving at other joggers and friendly little dogs, when I had a thought. ‘What if I opened my front door and took this out on the street?’ So I did. And it was fun. And pretty soon I was doing it four times a week and beginning to feel like the younger me.
I even set myself a challenge. To run my first 10k race. And I did and the emotion of that achievement brought tears to my eyes as I crossed the finishing line in 56 minutes. So I entered another race and another. Until I was crossing the line in 52 minutes, the theme tune to Rocky playing in my head as I sprinted home.

I lost so much weight in the process that when my young whistle-blowing friend called by my office to see how his Fed Rep was getting on he didn’t recognise me. I told him the person he was looking for had been suspended from duty after being caught giving out confidential information from the Police National Computer in return for pies.

Next time - First Class Dining on the Settle to Carlisle line.