‘I had to accept my fate as a sunflower’

Wow so much has happened since I last blogged, I’ve hardly had time to think nevermind write my thoughts down. So where do I start? Well I know you’ll want to know the resulting aftermath of the online Sport Relief poll we ran. As expected I got well and truly stitched up and no matter how hard I tried to rig the damn thing to be a Dalek, I had to accept my fate as a sunflower. Rachel gladly made me a beautiful outfit to wear, with my contribution being a green morph suit that took me about an hour to get into. As you can see from the photo I made for a very muscle-bound sunflower, thankfully it was a lovely day up at the gloriously sunny Duridge Bay Country Park in Northumberland. Rach and my mam took part in the mile with me, and I beat them with consummate ease, although I had to wait a while to get past someone pushing a pram. It was lots of fun and if seeing the image to your right has given you an unquenchable urge to sponsor our efforts, you can relieve yourself by clicking here.

You might have worked it out already but I’ll tell you anyway. The wheelchair I did the mile in was my brand new Ichair MC3 which has been supplied to me by my newest sponsor Meyra Ortopedia. They are a company based in Germany who make both manual and electric wheelchairs and want to get involved with Paralympic sport in Britian.

Meyra have been fantastic to me and I’m over the moon with my new chair. I must give special mention to Carefree Mobility in Darlington who came to my house to take all the specifications for the chair and are going to maintain it for me, they also provided a brand new Jay cushion to ensure my boney backside doesn’t get sore. The chair looks sexy as hell with the cappuccino paint job, and even more so with me in it – Meyra wanted to make the chair as unique and special as possible, so on the hydraulic lift which can allow me to go up to my normal standing height of 6 foot 2 inches, they have engraved my name on the side so that nobody can deny that this chair really is the Miller Mobile!

The season is about to kick off in four weeks time, so with that in mind I whisked Rachel away to Windermere for a nice relaxing weekend before I turn into a raging, self-obsessive stick-throwing monster. Whisked probably isn’t the most appropriate word because Rachel drove and the journey there was fairly horrific with windy cliff edge roads, sheep playing dare and driving over what seemed like the highest point in the universe. Once we got there we had a great time and stayed in a brilliant B&B called the Willowsmere that had a fully wheelchair accessible bedroom with a wet room – I would highly recommend it if you’re going to the lakes.

I have started throwing after six months of hibernation in the gym, it is pretty strange at first as you’re so used to beating yourself up five days a week that having sessions that don’t completely destroy you physically is weird. The weather has been typically changeable ranging from bitterly cold, to unseasonably hot, to snowing – meaning my sessions have been fairly erratic but it does feel good to be back throwing again after the winter exile. As is customary for this time of year I’m off to Portugal for a couple of weeks to nail down my technique, improve my power output, get set for the first part of the season and hopefully get some much needed rays on my back. Warm weather training has always been important to me, the main reason is that I can focus solely on training without any distractions of work or appearances.

I will miss the Missus though and I’m sure she’ll miss me when she’s busy decorating the bungalow while I’m away.

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• Video: Inspiring armless boy's Olympic dreams
• Paralympics: Some are only watching to get the gory details of how athletes acquired their impairments

• Hanghai

   Sunflower!!! I like sunflower.

• Kugelschreiber

  I consider people like you to be much greater athletes than the usual, run of the mill ones because you heroically deal with much greater obstacles than they.  I , for this reason, personally enjoy the interesting Para Olympics much more than the ordinary ones, myself.

• Kugelschreiber

  HANGHAI

  I think “sunflower” suits him, he sounds very cheerful, lively & a bit of a joker