This may be a little off topic, but it's important to me, so I'm going to ask you to go along with it. Next Sunday morning, I and hundreds of other determined individuals will haul myself sweating and cursing up the 1,096 steps to the top of Central Park (the St George building) in Perth's CBD.

It was approximately 1 year ago (almost to the day in fact) that I hauled myself sweating and cursing down into the Grand Canyon with three much fitter, much happier friends on a boys only vacation in the USA. When we finally returned to the top of the Angel Trail and lit up four Cubans in honour of the impending birth of our travelling buddy Dan's first progeny, I remarked at how lucky I was to have such an opportunity. Only a few days before, I had hiked thorugh Yosemite National Park in Northern California, and only a few days before that walked the span of the Golden Gate Bridge and back. These wonderful, life-affirming events were helping me to recover from an illness that had blurred the past 18 months of my life. I had walked out of the thick fog of depression and found myself facing a new challenge; to break my lifelong aversion to physical exertion.

Upon returning to Perth at the end of my walkabout in the USA, I hooked up with a friend of mine who also happened to be a personal trainer. I knew that Luke was a good and sensitive person and far from being the type of hopped-up gym junkie that I had envisioned all personal trainers were. Luke has pushed me harder than I would ever have been capable of doing myself and knows what I will and won't respond to. Many times, drenched and sick, I have looked down at the bandana I wore in the canyon that day that I keep wrapped around my wrist each session to remind myself why I have been doing this.

I have actually completed the Step Up for MS climb before; two years ago I volunteered as a motivator for my brother Courtney, who as a patron for the WA MS Society, was not only participating, but asked to sing at the end of the climb! I have challenged myself to beat my previous time and come in under 20 minutes. The record set is under 5 minutes, but I'll leave that to those super freaky people. I just want to get the thing done.

On Sunday, I will be joined in team El Goodo by my good friends Luke and Clayton, and we'll be no doubt laughing all the way to the top. In a very strange way, I can't wait.