If you’ve read my ‘To-do list’, the post I made about my New Year’s resolutions, and possibly even the post about quitting football, there are several things I’d like to do in the future. I’d like to learn to fly and I’m looking for some sort of physical activity to replace the football I have played on and off for about sixteen years. I would also like to lose a bit of weight and get fitter, having ‘filled out’ when I was seventeen and only dropped below thirteen-and-a-half stone once when I had mumps in 2005, when I lost over twenty pounds in ten days.
My problem is motivation. I really want to go for a run, and I will, just as soon as I finish this biscuit. Oh no, hang on, you shouldn’t exercise immediately after eating, so I guess I’ll have to go later.
It’s also no secret that I’m pretty frustrated with work, mainly due to the fact that the pay isn’t the best, which pretty much ruled out learning to fly any time soon. That was, until I stumbled across the idea of flying a microlight.
And then, in one of those strange, coincidental moments, everything converged to hopefully kill all three birds with one stone.
Emma and I were visiting North Weald airfield on Sunday for one of their airshow-type days, and saw that a company called Saxon Microlights were present and chatting to people about learning to fly a microlight. After a prolonged conversation about the joys of flying these aircraft, I started discussing the prospect of booking a lesson. I suggested some time at the beginning of October, and the instructor said “Of course, you’re less than fourteen stone…”, to which I replied, “Well…. give or take…” only for her to rejoin: “You will be”, and promptly weigh me. I weighed in at 91.2kg, and she set me the target of 90kg before my lesson. And now, I have the motivation, an achievable target and a plausible method which should all combine to help me achieve all three of the targets I have set myself over the last nine months.
Phil's Space 