Middle Age Madness!

G'day Tragics,

When you slide into your mid thirties it is more than likely that you have given away playing sport at a competitive level and have traded in the "weekend warrior" tag for a more suitable "midweek marshmallow" label.  You have a hit of golf with the lads, play a social game of basketball and even whack a tennis ball every blue moon. 

This brand of sport is fun, keeps you active and is a good release of stress from the daily, weekly and yearly realisation that you are past your sporting prime.  Sorry, I know that sounds a bit melodramatic, but that's exactly how I feel and I know I'm not alone.  Men especially need competition by nature.  No matter what age you are, you need a metaphorical fight to the death every now and then.  You have to compete for something real.  My mates and I thought we had concocted the perfect antidote.

Seven sports in a day.  A heptathlon if you will.  Points on the line for each sport and money on the line for the whole tournament.   Bring it on!  Golf, squash, ping pong, tennis, darts, pool and ten pin bowling.
We planned out the times required to complete each event on a pretty spreadsheet....it looked do-able and to make it even more mouth watering, we all fancied ourselves to take out the title.  This was the contest we'd been craving.

Four of us were competing.  Ages of 33, 35, 46 and 53.  The only handicapping for our heptathlon was our official golf handicaps.  The other sports were man on man.

Golf was first on the agenda, teeing off at 5.30am.  You didn't have to be Bruce McAvaney to predict it would be a massive day. 

The four of us play golf every fortnight.  There is plenty of sledging and the atmosphere is fairly relaxed....not on heptathlon day.  We were much quieter, spent an eternity planning shots and beat ourselves up more than usual when things hit the skids.  We were well and truly in competition mode and loving it.

Why do men need to play for the win?  I get upset if my wife beats me at scrabble.  Why do we take it so personally when we lose?  It could stem from caveman days, where men used to fight it out for a cave chick's affections.  That will to win has stuck.  Win at all costs....we are wired that way i guess.

Golf was intense.  Winners were grinners and losers gutted.  One event down, six to go.  Squash was next and I was personally concerned...definitely not my strong suit.  As anyone who's played squash knows, it is brutal, especially if you're shit at it.  You run around like a headless chook, sweating your arse off, running into walls, running into each other and occasionally getting smacked in the face with the racket or hit in the balls with ...the ball.

When the dust had settled, the leader for the day was further in front and the loser (myself) was further behind.  The heckling began and the enjoyment of the day was transforming into a blood lust.  This was no longer a social day out with the boys, it was all out war.

On the fitness side of things after 2 events, we were all rooted.  Squash had smashed us up badly and the realisation that the day had only just started began to sink in.  Had we bitten off more than we could chew....stiff shit, we were committed....Onwards!

After munching down a dodgy lunch we arrived at the ping pong/darts arena (one of the boys garages).  It was a bloody sweat box, but the relief of tackling two midly draining events compensated.  Over lunch there was a few rows/discussions regarding rules and prize money. Tension grew proportionately to fatigue, as did poor skill execution.

Darts and pong were as tight and competitive as ever, but the results did little to the overall leader board.  I was sitting in 4th and by this stage was completely demoralised that these three has-beens (sorry boys), could have the wood over me in sports that I thought I had mastered.  The thought of 2 hours of tennis in the Gold Coast sun was as appealing as getting a prostate examination from John Hopoate.

Tennis was a nightmare.  We had stiffened up to the point of no return and the quality of rallies were embarrassing at best.  We were all sitting the mental toughness exam and none of us had the cheat sheet.
The results again had little bearing on the overall standings and the day was becoming a survival of the stupidest.  We were dead men walking.

Showers and a few beers before the final two events was tonic enough to regenerate a final charge.  We started to remember that what we were doing was fun, but three of us were secretly seething simply because: we weren't winning!

A few more beers during pool lightened the atmosphere and we enjoyed each others company as we should have been all day.  We started to speak about improvements for next years events and which sports should stay and go.  Surprise surprise, everyone wanted to ditch something they were crap at and bring in something they couldn't lose.  Kind of defeats the purpose, but we didn't care...we wanted to win!

Ten pin bowling was a bit of a blur. It wrapped up at around 11.30pm  We'd been at it for 17 hours.  The after party we'd planned was cancelled.  It was bed time for the heroes of yesteryear.  We'd proved something to ourselves...I'll let you decide what it was.  One of us was happy and the other three distraught.  Once the three days of pain had wore off, it was time to reflect on the day.  Was it worth it?  Did it scratch an itch?  Will we do it next year?   Five seconds to think....Of course!

To my fellow gladiators : Peaky, Lukey and G.O, well done boys and thanks for a great day and for goodness sake....act your age!.....Tragic!