Ashley Young and the 6Ps

So, turns out it's 18 months until I'm 30 (18 months minus two days now) and not a single person bought me a 28 and a half-th bithday card, let alone a gift.

Well, I'm all for self gifting so I bought me a return train ticket to Southampton and wandered over to one of four 10m diving board equipped pools in the country¹. I threw on my swim shorts (Speedos are never necessary) and swam a quick 150m in the pool as a warm up (all helps towards the six-pack I suppose)...

"Ashley Young" - (12) Dive off a 10m diving board

I then introduced myself to my instructor - a young chap called Chris with a "National Diving team" T-shirt. I explained that I wasn't particularly interested in technique, just that I wanted to throw myself off the biggest platform possible.

I'm Pretty sure he hated me - I could almost see the words "who is this slightly overweight joker who deosn't take my passion seriously?" flash through his mind. I didn't blame him.

Apparently you need a lot of practice and technique to dive off a 10m board safely - and I was told there was no chance me doing that on my first lesson, and probably not on my second.

So off I trotted to the 3m board - dived poorly, got some pointers, repeated slightly better. 10 mins later and there I was on the 5m board repeating the pattern. 25 mins later I was up on the 7m board, again, repeating the pattern.

I was pretty happy to get off the 7m board. I've never dived off a 7m board before and it's pretty damn high. It's about as high as a double decker bus with 2/3 of another double decker stacked on top of it. I did this for the last 25mins and have the bruises on my hands, shoulders and arms to prove it (water hurts folks).

By the end of it I think Chris hated me slightly less - I listened to what he said and tried to learn at least some technique. I would hardly say I was graceful, but the longer it went on, the better each dive felt. Either way - he said I will definitely be able to do the 10m next time. Which is good, because trains to Southampton are expensive!

"The 6Ps" - Everything Else

So, in this first two days I have ticked precisely zero challenges off the list. A poor effort. But in the last month I have discovered that doing 30 things in 18 months, more specifically planning 30 things in 18 months with little annoyances like work, weddings and honeymoons in the way is fairly tricky. But fun.

I've got a Flashmob (18) booked for July, a Motorcross (19) day in October,  a Zombie Day (21) booked for November, a holiday to the ICEHOTEL in Sweden (7) all booked up for Feb and a Marathon (1) in April.

The 3 Peaks (2) is almost sorted for September (if my co-walkers pull their respective fingers out), I've started my pre-wedding diet (all helps with the Six-pack (3)), been practicing the Guitar (11) for the last few weeks (turns out it's the singing at the same time that's the tough bit!) and thoroughly researched (on YouTube) the proper technique for a standing Backflip (25) - it's all in the knees. Apparently.

The list is set - I've made no changes. Now it's time to start doing stuff - it's going to be a fun year. Next week is my stag. I still no idea where I'm going but am hopefull that the 30 Jagerbombs (29) can get crossed off then...

¹ The others are either in Yorkshire or you have to be a member of the national diving team (Crystal Palace) or you have to actually be taking part in the Olympics (Stratford)