Chapter 3: Married Life & Finding Contentment

I married Nicole Marks in April 1998.

We had an awesome wedding at the Carlton Towers hotel in Knightsbridge. A swanky affair with 200+ guests. We honeymooned in Scotland and we both loved rambling and cycling..bliss. I LOVED the great outdoors but just didn’t know where it was until that point in my life.

Wonderful day! Sorry about the hair!

The next few years I dabbled in this and that, swimming in 2003 when our first child, Talya (who takes after me in more ways than I care to think about). Then after appendicitis culled swimming I started doing weights but hated the futility and found it to be a completely vain pursuit.

Talya

In 2004 I ran with purpose - and for a fleeting moment I was an “athlete”.

It was at my old School, Mill Hill and one of my friends brothers (David Cohen) was an old boy. We decided to run the 100 metre dash on the old 100 metre course on an old rugby pitch called “Gears”.

We started off and I couldn’t believe that this 40 year old was beating me.

I stepped it up a gear and then like pulling a cord tight with an abrupt tug, my hamstring popped. I did the usual clutching of the thigh and hopping to the side. I thought I would pass out, the pain was so sharp. At that time my daughter needed the toilet too so I had to balance her whilst nearly crying in pain so that she could do her thing.

It wouldn’t have been so bad but I had to go the V festival that night with my friend Matt George and ended up drinking alcohol to excess so I could walk!

My second daughter, Amelie arrived in 2005 coinciding with my first period of garden leave in between my job at Sky and joining BT… I had 12 weeks to do NOTHING. I played squash, went to the gym, looked after the kids and learned to play guitar (another pursuit that has enriched my life beyond belief).

Amelie

In 2007 I joined a Jewish voluntary organisation and had 14 weeks of very intense physical training. I was getting fit…for the first time since school. It felt great and manifested itself in a most unusual place.

Nicole and I went to New York for a long weekend in October 2007. It was an opportunity for the two of us to go on our first adventure since honeymoon and we were riding high, excelling in our respective careers and with some cash to burn. It also gave me an opportunity to exorcise my demons which I did by visiting Asprey, the place where we lived (1548 Second Avenue and 82nd Street, above an Army and Navy outlet store).

Nicole, having just run round the reservoir

But it also gave us one more thing… The reservoir. The one made famous in Marathon Man with Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider and Lawrence Olivier.

Nicole and I took it in turns to run around the reservoir, a famous haunt for joggers and arguably one of the birthplaces of jogging for Westerners. I blasted round the oval thinking of the scene from Marathon Man where Lawrence Olivier meets his maker but also feeling invigorated.

The sun was out, the wind was in my hair, Arcade Fire’s anthemic “No Cars Go” was playing through my headphones. This was GREAT!

Me: Running The NYC Reservoir: No Cars Go!

Regrettably I let my fitness slip after this and regressed to my former sedentary yet busy lifestyle.

Leaving BT and joining 118118 was a wake up call in more ways than one.

I needed a purpose!