Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Watching throw the javelin, even off a single step, is enough to silence the most one-eyed biological determinist.

Goldie's expert tuition was desperately needed. With the days racing by until the one-hour decathlon, it's no longer just a case of trying things out. There's been at least one lesson in each of the 10 disciplines (curses on the hamstring injury that prevented more) but we're now at the point where genuine, measurable improvements are required.

Unfortunately, solo work on the running/turning/lobbing has yielded only the sort of distances or might expect.

More worryingly still, the javelin keeps landing upside down. Forget the aeronautical aesthetics; unless it starts to land nose first, it won't even count as a legal mark. And no score in the jav = one devastated decathlon.

Like a doctor diagnosing an illness, Goldie examines the symptoms and works out what's causing them. There's issues with my claw grip, insufficient shoulder mobility and something very strange indeed going on with the final hand movement.

For some reason I'm trying to rip it like a . I'm also aiming the point of the javelin at the sort of angle favoured by Apollo 11 at launch.

When Goldie throws, it's a smooth, effortless groove that pings the javelin in a perfect parabola miles into the infield. When I try the same, the spear turns sideways or stalls and dies.

Shoulders are stretched, fingers replaced around the grip. Sights are set on an unwitting hammer thrower in the cage down the other end of the field. The chap's not in danger - not unless he sprints 80 metres, picks up one of my prone javelins and impales himself deliberately - but it helps keep the spear travelling in a straight line.

"All you want to see when you throw," advises Goldie, "is a little black dot disappearing into the sky." Mine's more of a diagonal line, but we're starting to make progress.

In theory, your body is supposed to act like a bow - supple, springy - and your arm like the arrow. In practice, getting into the right position to throw involves such unfamiliar contortions to wrist, elbow and shoulder that a novice feels about as bendy as a high hurdle.

Then there's the run-up. I'd hoped that the addition of a thick, manly, supporting belt a la might sort things out. Instead Goldie has me prancing down the runway like a startled fawn. I couldn't look more camp if I was wearing a see-through gauze blouson and a studded leather cap.

Right foot crosses in front of left, throwing arm out behind, front arm out in front with wrist cocked. I'm moving like a malcoordinated chorus girl who's had too much to drink. A terrible thought enters my head: what if this isn't Goldie's fault at all? What if this is actually just the way I run?

Compensation of sorts is found with a primeval bellow as the javelin is released. The thinking is simple: if it worked for , it's worth giving a go. I don't have the man's whipcrack arm, extraordinary explosive strength or elasticated lats - but... ah, enough of this sentence. I'm getting downhearted just writing it.

Other lessons are learned between breathers. I find out that Goldie honed her technique throwing spears over fields of million-pound thoroughbred racehorses by her parents' house near Newmarket, something which might give and retrospective sleepless nights, and also hear a story about Dean Macey and a golf buggy that comes as no surprise whatsoever.

Then there's the matter of the stress fracture that's wrecked a large part of her season. I've spent the last five blogs moaning about my hamstring, but I'm only doing this decathlon for fun - it's not my living, which is probably for the best. For Goldie, it's altogether more serious.

It cost her six weeks of training and competition, and almost her seventh British title and a shot at the next month. Even now she's only just ready to throw off her full approach. For someone who only missed out on a medal at last summer's Olympics by 38 centimetres, every session lost to injury must hurt.

Still, there are compensations. Which of us hapless amateurs, for example, will ever have something like penned in their honour?

An hour and a half in, heartening progress has been made. In any case, Goldie has proper training to do, and I need to let all the advice sink in rather than just attempting run-ups of increasingly ridiculous length. There's a good reason why doesn't come off 60 paces and the back straight.

What's that? How far did I throw? Let's just say that it was more metres than .

But not by much.