Most of us have a hard time getting to the gym once or twice a week. Busy
working lives and the demands of friends, home and family mean the best
intentions are often just that: intentions. But when Rob Lines identifies an
athletic ambition, nothing stands in his way.
Rob, a Principal IT Consultant who joined Norwich Union in 2001, is well known
for his sporting and fundraising prowess. His recent exploits include a 300-mile
bike ride from London to Paris and the 2005 London Triathlon, both in aid of
Action Medical Research. He and some colleagues are regular lunchtime runners
and he's also a coach/manager with Norwich Canoe Club. So was Rob simply born an
athletic superman, or is there hope for the rest of us?
"I used to swim for the county as a teenager," he says, "and I
was also keen on surf kayaking. In fact I made it to the world championships
twice when I was in my 20s. But when I got a job as project manager for a
computer distributor, I didn't have time for any exercise because I was out on
the road all the time, and I became very unfit."
It was only when he moved to Norwich Union and joined the local canoe club that
Rob decided he had to take drastic action. "The coach said if I wanted to
get fitter I should start running, so I found a training schedule on a website
and began by doing a mile a day twice a week. Then my colleague Mike Yeomans
joined in and we set ourselves the target of doing the 2002 Great North Run,
which is 13.1 miles."
So the pair signed up and decided they would run for charity. "It's a great
motivator," Rob laughs, "because there's no backing out!"
Meanwhile, he saw an advertisement for the following year's London marathon, and
applied for that too. With only a one-in-five chance of getting in on the
ballot, he was surprised to be offered a place. "Although there wasn't any
pressure to do so, I decided to run for charity. People were very generous and I
raised £1,600 for the local branch of the RNLI."
Since then Rob has swum, cycled and run hundreds of miles and raised thousands
of pounds for different causes. Under Aviva's 'pound for pound' scheme he is
eligible for £500 a year in match-funding sponsorship, and he's always looking
for new ways to bring in the cash. "Before my first London-to-Paris bike
ride, colleagues found out that cyclists shave their legs, so they raised £250
by getting my legs waxed!
"All my colleagues have been really generous and I would just like to say thank
you to everyone who has sponsored me over the years and helped me raise all this
money."
His favorite recent event was the London triathlon, a huge event with some
10,000 competitors. "There was a great atmosphere," Rob recalls.
"I'd qualified to do the same course as the elite athletes and I even ended
up beating Olympic rower James Cracknell in the swim."
Setting himself challenges and targets is one of the keys to Rob's success. The
other, he says, is keeping a variety of sports on the go. "In any sport you
get peaks and plateaus," he explains, "and during the flat periods you
can get very demotivated. By having a number of sports you don't always plateau
at the same time."
Rob's plans for next year include the tough E'Tape du Tour cycle race (a stage of
the Tour de France) and the Action Medical Research London to Paris Bike Ride in
July (www.action.org.uk).
If you're interested in sponsoring Rob on either ride or in joining him on the London to Paris Ride,
contact him at roblines@yahoo.com.