WEEKEND WARRIOR
Reaching “a certain age” means a call for a health check-up for Brunty – the perfect opportunity for some shameless bragging
Having recently passed a ‘certain age’, I’ve noticed a distinct change in the way the marketing world views me. One day I was receiving exclusive offers for sunglasses and chunky watches, and the next I was being bombarded with adverts for remote controlled awnings, Viking river cruises, stairlifts and planning my own funeral.
Naturally, as the UK’s top mediocre triathlete, I have no interest in any of these just yet, except possibly the stairlift which seemed like an appealing way of getting upstairs after coming back from a long run. However, it’s instructive to think that I’m of an age where marketers assume that all my highlights of 2018 were naps.
Further evidence of the wider world’s attitude to my age came in the form of a cunningly worded invitation from my local doctor’s surgery to participate in a free health check. As a triathlete, I, like you, am hewn from solid granite and I laugh in the face of the puny ailments that lay the general public low, so I’m a rare visitor to the village quacks, save for the odd occasion where I’ve injured some limb or other when all they tell me to do is stop training – advice which is about as useful as a handbrake on a canoe. Knowing that, thanks to triathlon, I’m not a typical health-specimen for my age, my initial reaction was to scoff at the thought of having my health checked, but then I considered that it might give me a massive free ego boost when they tell me I have the lungs of a three-year-old howler monkey, so off I went. My health check started benignly enough by measuring my height (6ft 3in), my weight (mind your own business), my blood pressure (very good), taking a blood test (B+) and asking some questions about my smoking habits (none) and drinking habits (again, mind your own business).
Things then started turning a bit weird when the nurse measured my heart rate. Having done so she studied the monitor, frowned and said: “I must have done that wrong” before doing it again. She studied it a second time, frowned again, said: “That can’t be right” before trying again, frowning again, and saying “I’ll be back in a minute”. Outside the door I heard hushed, urgent tones summoning Doctor Carberry (known locally as ‘Toby’) who appeared, smiled indulgently at me, measured my heart rate, frowned, tried again, frowned again and then sat down and adopted a serious expression.
‘What’s up?’ I ventured to ask. “Your heart rate is very low,” said Toby “and we’re worried that you might have something called bradycardia” which was as clear as custard to me. ‘What’s that?’ I squeaked, now wishing I’d replied to the funeral ad. “It’s where your heart rate is dangerously low. For someone of your age a resting heart rate should be between 60 and 100 beats per minute, whereas yours is 40.” ‘Oh that!’ I said mightily relieved, whereupon I started to recount my tri-based lifestyle to him, seizing on the opportunity to explain my weekly training schedule to a captive audience. To be honest, as soon as I said the word ‘triathlete’, he said “Ah!” but I still made him sit through the rest of my race history and my various PBs.
Once my lifestyle became clear, a resting heart-rate of 40/50 is apparently perfectly normal for ‘young adults and athletes’, which just goes to show that whatever your age, being a triathlete puts years on your life (only for the stress of raceday to take them all off again). My ego was suitably boosted by this news, although Dr Death couldn’t resist one last dig by departing with the words: “You’re in extremely good physical condition – for your age”, which is a bittersweet position to be in, akin to discovering you have a long-lost brother and then finding out he needs a kidney.
So there we are advertisers of the world, despite your belief that at my age I’m clinging on like a failed trapeze artist, I’m a triathlete and am therefore going to be at large and evading capture for some time to come. Having had my health check the only suggestion for improvement they made was to increase my vegetable intake, so I’ve stopped picking the olives off my pizzas.
“I still made him sit through the rest of my race history and my various PBs”