I am delighted to be able to say that I completed my first marathon, a 42.2km slog around London, in a new personal best of 4 hours, 17 minutes and 5 seconds.

A problematic knee and some cramping means I was a little slower than I wanted to be. Despite the pain, there is no place in the world I would have rather been than running around London on April 17^th 2011.  The crowds were amazing and having all my family cheering like mad at the 40KM mark made the final run to the finish line something to savour.

I am not sure where my mid-life crisis will take me next. There have been post-race discussions of running the Sydney Marathon in September and maybe New York next year.

I have bought myself a unicycle so maybe this is where my talents lie! Whatever happens I am determined to grow old as disgracefully as possible…

We have arrived in the UK and I have had my last proper training run. Bracknell, where we are staying with my folks, at 6am on Saturday morning was quite serene. After a couple of warm days the flowers and trees are in bloom. As I ran around the town that I grew up in, the memories came flooding back. I ran for 20km and everywhere I went I could recall a memory from more than 25 years ago. If marathon running is my midlife crises then this “therapy session” has left me feeling very appreciative of what I have and what I have experienced to get me here.

A couple of things I don’t remember but witnessed on my run were, a deer, a team of sled dogs, a fox and a couple of Bracknell youths riding their bikes with hoodies and attitude. At 6.30am I like to think they were riding home after a big night out, if not the Bracknell Massive obviously takes hanging around on street corners extremely seriously to be up training at that hour.

I am feeling in fine form, a couple of light runs this week and lots of rest and I will be at the start line ready to go.

Here’s to creating another happy memory!

My marathon aspirations have made it into our local newspaper. Robyn thought this was an opportunity to good to miss,  so she set it up (or set me up, I’m not sure which) either way Milly and Alice are delighted!

So says the Oxfam fundraising material they sent me about the London Marathon.

It has been an interesting few weeks, I have had a heavy cold that basically stopped me training for 2 weeks. I was back on my feet this week and developed a slight knee twinge. I got myself checked out by the physio on Friday and he couldn’t find anything wrong.

So rather than ease myself back into it,  I set off at 6am in the pouring rain yesterday to run 30km out to Bondi and back. I made it to Bondi and as I was heading home my calf began to really hurt,  so as a precaution I called it a day and took a cab home!

It has felt better today so I think it may just need some rest, I have another appointment with the physio tomorrow just to be sure. I think us mature chaps are a bit like old cars, once one things goes wrong then so does everything else.

With less than a month to go my running coach reckons I have enough mileage under my belt not to stress.  I think there is enough time to bodge myself together, even if I get to the starting line running on 3 cylinders the chances are I will still get around (after all statistics never lie).

You can sponsor me at http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/BenReeve

…until I run the London Marathon. Training is going much better than I would ever have thought. I went for a 35km run last weekend and could even walk afterwards.

One of the benefits of all this training is that it seems you can eat what you like. My running coach has prescribed chocolate milk as the perfect post run pick me up. My preference is “Vanilla Malt” . To give you a comparison of how much goodness it contains, a Big Mac is 12 weight watchers points, a 600ml of Oak Vanilla Milk is 15 points.

I am not sure if being able to drink this guilt free is a key reason to get up at 5am and spend 3½ hours running but it certainly tastes good when you finally get to sit down.

For those of you that are interested here is a site that contains a few of my training runs from the last few weeks. The joy of living in Sydney is you do get some nice scenery. To make a donation to Oxfam who I am running for go to http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/BenReeve

After flying around Sydney harbour in my bamboo flying machine last year, the second part of my midlife crisis is to head back to “Blighty” to run the London Marathon on Sunday 17^th April 2011.

Running a marathon has not been a long held ambition of mine, I owe it all to a rather large Friday night out on the town. The next Saturday morning feeling sorry for myself and a tad remorseful that I didn’t feel well enough to attempt my regular Saturday morning jog across the bridge, I decided to put things right and run a Marathon. The Sydney Marathon was less than a month away and applications for the London Marathon had already closed. Why I didn’t stop there and then is beyond me, it can be very easy to “think big” from behind a computer keyboard with a hangover.

After a little bit of research I discovered that I may be able to run in London if I got a sponsored place for a charity. So without really thinking it through I filled out a form for Oxfam, dreamt up a plan to raise the necessary sponsorship money and emailed it off straight away. Feeling much better about myself and having corrected the wrongs of the previous evening I went and had a fry up and forgot completely about it.

A couple of weeks later I was away delivering a training program when Robyn rang me and was more than delighted to inform me that I had been offered a place to run for Oxfam in the 2011 London Marathon!

So it began.

Initially I planned to go over on my own, stagger around and come back. Apparently there is a lot more to running a marathon, I now have the backing of a team of people (physio, chiro, and running coach) who are working hard to get me to the start line in peak condition and the family have managed to include themselves on the trip so they can cheer me on.

Christmas and a visit from overseas friends in the New Year means I have juggled a few too many drinks with some early morning training runs.

I have also been running in the Australian summer so even on an early morning run it is often 20+ degrees. I have been telling myself I have the benefit of warm weather training like the elite athletes. My own elite running coach was a Christmas present. My sister and brother in law (a London Marathon veteran) found some bloke on the Internet and they commissioned him to help me get around. I was a little sceptical at first, and Robyn didn’t help by saying she thought he was  25 stone and all he did was sit around in his undies all day and between mouthfuls of chips he was going to ring me up and tell me to run faster and eat more nuts!

I have met him he is the real deal. An ultra marathon runner himself, he firstly set about analysing my data. Running with a small computer on my wrist, tracking my every move brings me great joy, I enjoy the post run analysis more than the run itself. He has also deemed my internet sourced training schedule “light on”. The upshot is he now has me running time trials and a variety of distances at different paces whilst we balance my power output against my recovery profile. At least he knows what he is on about, I just do as I am told.

As long as I can balance the occasional piece of work with my running schedule and stay injury free I will be able to tick the second item off my bucket list on the afternoon of Sunday 17^th.If you want to support my midlife crises and a good cause you can make a donation at: http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/BenReeve

I was asked what my most memorable experience of 2010 was and what my biggest learning was.

My biggest learning was if the entry guidelines say “maximum wing span 8 meters” then there is a reason behind this, hence my most memorable moment (or one of them) in 2010.

Watch me fly on YouTube – Flugtag Ace of Spades

The Sydney Royal Easter Show was first held in 1823. The Show attracts one million people per year and my wife came a very honourable second in the cross stitch competition. For this she wins a ribbon and the respect of all the people who attend.

It goes some way to making up for the fact that she didn’t win the “Lovely Girl” competition at the Ungarie Show in 1987.

Whilst second at the show is an impressive performance, it does not compare to my own Grand Champion ribbon awarded for cooking damper at the 1998 Ungarie show.

Some say this was fixed.

The fact I had my picture taken for the local newspaper and was interviewed about how it felt to be a Pom beating Australians in their own backyard, before the competition started, was merely co-incidental.

On a weekend away with some friends, lots of kids and lots of adults, we decided to have a pirate theme. It was mandatory for young and old all to wear a pirate outfit and to talk like a pirate or they would be forced to walk the plank.

It’s amazing how dressing up and talking like a pirate seems to cheer everybody up, and not just the people in the outfits.

Everybody it seems has the ability to talk “pirate”.

All day complete strangers were more than happy to offer their own pirate impressions, “Ahoy me hearties!”, “Shiver me timbers”, “Arr Jim Lad” and “Pieces of eight” were offered up wherever we went.

We should probably thank Captain Pugwash, Captain Feathersword and Captain Jack Sparrow for making Pirating so popular.

So you can all enjoy the experience put 19^th September in your diary, it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day !

Check out www.talklikeapirate.com

The family and I went on a rail and sail excursion from Sydney to Wollongong.  Nothing remarkable about that except it was on a 1928 steam train and, given my excitement and how much enjoyment it afforded me, I can only conclude that I have in fact turned into my father.

I discovered that this process was irreversible a few years back and made a conscious decision not to fight it but to just let it happen. My metamorphosis was nearly complete at Christmas when we spent some time together. It was very unnerving to find myself sitting around the table and becoming conscious of the fact that I was expertly demonstrating many of the old man’s mannerisms. In fact we have become so similar our conversations about maps, kites and the merit of B roads were enjoyable and proactively sought out.

This weekend’s trip has finally completed my transformation.   If any further evidence is really required then the great conversation I had with a fellow passenger in our carriage about the Albion Park Air show and the assortment of WWII flying aircraft really draws the case for the prosecution to a close.

I know I am not alone in undergoing this change, for those of you who are still in denial, stop fighting the inevitable.

“Nature or Nurture?” it doesn’t matter, either way it is your parents fault.

I am now going to buy myself a shed and retire to the garden. Deep Joy!