NORTHERN PLANNER

It's only four weeks until the Great North Swim and I'm nowhere near bloody ready. It's going to be more survival than doing well, partly down to waiting too long to do anything about my bad stroke, partly down to a baby boy precluding training nearly enough. No point moaning about stuff you can't change. I'll finish and I'll finish in style, I just know I'll be annoyed knowing I could have done better.

The thing is, it was never really about the result, I needed a goal to keep me going. It's tough getting out of bed at 6.15 when you've haven't been allowed to sleep by a teething baby. And so it turned out, without the added motivation, I would have trained less and been more miserable for it.

But the thing about a journey is that you're never sure what you pick up along the way, and what you gain is not always what you expected. It's the premise for one of my favourite ad campaigns:

…but that's not the point. In the quest to sort out the stroke, I found out about some intensive training session for oldies that haven't quite lost it and want get more if it back. They're bloody hard. 7.30am on a Saturday morning, my new regular date with pain and suffering. But it's great to be training with people again. Having a coach and people around makes you push that little bit harder. No chance of kidding yourself you're working hard, with these session you know you are.

So all that's good, I've a new regular thing to look forward/dread. But the first time I went, I bumped into someone I used to swim with more than twenty years ago. It was lovely to see her and find out what she's been up to (I still can't close the circle and get my head around her being a Mum of two). Anyway, it brought lots of memories of those times and the people I spent it with. It hurst to think of those days and know they're gone forever, but it's also good to think about them and how great those times were. Made me realise I'd kept in touch with them more.

That's why falling short of what I set out to do doesn't really matter. It's true of this and true of everything as far as I'm concerned.