SO 2012 marches on and amazingly so has my desire to at least attempt to eat healthily and exercise more.

There have however been some unintended and unfortunate consequences.

This week’s moan, I mean column, is about the other factor in this unholy health alliance – exercise.

I’ve never been one for physical exertion. I have never tried to stop others from running, jumping or rowing, but it has never really appealed to me.

At secondary school I was introduced to rugby. My school deemed football too common. Football! The beautiful game.

Instead it was thought rugby was the sport to instill the kind of values one might need later in life, presumably the willingness to espouse violence and the ability to drink your own weight in alcohol. I’m not going to lie to you, I didn’t enjoy playing rugby. I am, after all, a wuss.

I tried every excuse in the book to get out of playing. I told them that for religious reasons I couldn’t play on a Saturday, so they moved the fixtures to a Sunday. I told them I had brought the wrong kit, and to this day I’m the only man to play as a front row prop in just a pair of ‘budgie smugglers’.

Then I stumbled upon a golden nugget of information. At this point I would like to publicly thank Robert Bayley Osgood and Carl B Schlatter. You see, it was those two who lent their names to the longest note off PE ever.

Who were they?

No, not master forgers of parental signatures, but the men who identified a difficult to disprove but fairly common condition that mildly irritates growing teenagers – Osgood-Schlatter disease, something to do with bones and tendons.

Armed with this information, I booked an appointment for the doctor immediately, complaining of pain in my knees.

I had hoped to secure a week or so off the coldest, muddiest, most unpleasant part of the season. Little did I realise I had hit the lazy boy jackpot.

The doctor told me that the only way to recover was through rest and relaxation.

Now these were exercises I could complete, but who would have thought it would take me the best part of two years to recover?

Sadly, by the time I had won back my health I had lost my place in the school’s 3rd XV. My rugby career was over.

Nowadays I’m not looking for excuses to avoid exercise, I am trying to embrace it, but my comeuppance is painful and embarrassing.

I have been trying to do some running, although in truth it’s more walking and panting at the moment. The only way I can describe my current and unintended injury is ‘nipple rub’ and my attempt to remedy it with a large plaster only resulted in a terrible, self-administered operation removing said plaster to indescribable pain.

So maybe it is time to go back and get another doctor’s note?

  • Joel Hammer can be heard every Saturday, from 6am to 9am, on BBC Radio Oxford.