72 year old Keith Atkinson, President of Nottingham Rowing Club, has just completed rowing 30 million metres on the rowing machine. It has taken him 12 years - the equivalent of rowing over 6 thousand metres every day!  Here is his inspiring story:

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"When I began in December 1997", explained Keith "I had two main objectives. One was to learn as much as possible about the machine as my wife and I were part of the newly-formed Concept 2 Education Team. The other was to maintain my aerobic fitness level. I had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis which was making walking increasingly difficult, so sitting down and exercising was a good option. More by accident than design, I settled into 2 million metres a year pattern. In 1999 and 2000 I was fortunate to race at the World Indoor Rowing Championships in Boston (Massachusetts) where I won the bronze medals in the over-65 Lightweight category.

That was really my competitive swansong, as things became more difficult. When London won the 2012 Olympics, I set myself a personal target; that I would try to complete 30 million metres by the time the Olympics opened. It has become something of an endurance trial as the disease tightened its grip, and I have had to increase the amount of work done daily in order to achieve my target whilst I still could.

I have been fortunate that the disease - I have the Primary Progressive version - has progressed at a slow rate, and I am convinced that the reason for this is that I have been able to continue to exercise regularly. My regime is an early morning start, with between 6 and 8 thousand metres indoor rowing. I follow this with around an hour's stretching and yoga. It's not all hard work - I do have Christmas Day off!

I wonder if some folk who read this might think 'Get a life!' Well that's exactly my philosophy and is just what I am endeavouring to do.

So, what next? Well in the immortal words of Fagin: 'I'm reviewing the situation'.