Regular readers of these pages may have received the impression that your beloved editors are perhaps a little too fond of a drink and the odd chain-smoking session while hunched over a laptop or a new episode of Battlestar Galactica.

And you would be entirely correct.

However, something happened to me last year that really put the frighteners on me.

I got sick.

Not just the usual winter cold/perfect excuse for spending a week lying on the couch in a dressing gown watching daytime TV, kind of sick; it was doctor wanting to put you in hospital/oh my god I’ve got pneumonia and people die from this/I’m really having serious trouble dragging in the next bit of oxygen and it’s getting kinda scary, sick. It was terrifyingly awful and it went on for weeks.

After it was all over and I could manage to stand up and breathe at the same time I figured it might be a sign (give me a sign…any kind of sign…ok nevermind – apologies to the Man with Two Brains) and maybe it was time to re-think my lifestyle.

Give up smoking, you suggest?

Spend less time holding forth in bars and more time eating vegetables at home, perhaps?

No no, I reply. A triathlon! That’s what I need!

As soon as my eyes had readjusted after that blinding flash of inspiration, I hunted around in the internets for a bit and found the very thing. The Brooks Fun Triathlon - a 300m swim, a 10km bike ride and a 3km run, on March 22, right here in St Kilda.

Perfect.

I can already do each of those on their own (or at least I could before I disappeared into pneumonia hell) so all I need to do is get back to my normal level of fitness, up it a bit and Bob’s your uncle (aside: Bob is, in fact, my uncle. Married to my Aunt Sherril. Useless factoid, I know, but it appeals to the little-used whimsical side of me. I digress. Back to the story).

I pounced on lovelyhusband when he got home from work and dragged him over to look at the details of my latest obsession. He looked carefully and then started poking me and peering down the back of my shirt, muttering “who are you and what the hell have you done with my wife?”

Then I emailed a whole lot of my friends inviting them to sign up as well. I sat back and confidently waited their eager acceptance. The indignant replies (along the lines of “I'm scared of water, roads and bike seats, so I think I'd be a liability. Besides, I don't trust people who try and hide the facts about something by giving it a name with an oxymoron in the title. Fun Triathlon?? Is that like the Peoples Democratic Republic of Korea??” from Luke) didn’t dent my enthusiasm for a minute.

Launching myself into training, however, did manage to dull my edge a bit. Have you ever tried running up a hill when you’re not so young anymore and you’ve spent a few too many years chain smoking in bars and you’ve only mostly recovered from a nasty bout of pneumonia? It doesn't work very well, let me tell you.

Things improved a lot when we piled all the kids and dogs into the car to go to Phillip Island for two weeks over Christmas (another aside: no matter how good an idea it may seem at the time, do not EVER give dogs tomato and onion sausages just before you put them in the car to go for a long drive. We drove the whole way to the island with all five of our heads hanging out the window gasping for air, while the dogs sat on the floor of the car and stared at their bottoms in bewilderment).

Once the journey trauma was over, morning swims became much easier, walks along the beach turned into jogs and all that fresh air and exercise led to lots of healthy eating and sleeping the rest of the time.

Wow, new and brilliant feeling – health! Who knew?

So, here I go. For the next two months I am in triathlon training mode. I haul myself and my bike down to Albert Park every Saturday to do a practice run (so far I can complete the whole thing but the 3km run is more of a 3km walk/stagger) and most mornings I get up early and go swimming riding or cycling.

Then at night I go down to the King and brag to one and all about how fit I’m getting – “just hang on while I get another cigarette and then I’ll tell you about my training program”.

I like to keep a balanced approach to life, it’s important, don’t you think?

Anyone who’s interested: http://www.supersprint.com.au/events/brooks-fun-tri-series-0809.aspx

See you there on the day. We will have our own medical team standing by and any survivors are welcome to join us for a champagne breakfast afterwards.

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