Four years ago I was in Australia, working for ITV on the rugby union World Cup. My husband, Kenny, was playing in the competition for Scotland for the third time. I was fortunate enough to be able to witness the end of his international career, to watch his hard-working and finely tuned body push itself at the highest level just one more time.

Scroll forward a few years and when we were moving house last month, opening up boxes of memories, he popped his last ever World Cup jersey on. He has probably put on only a kilo of weight since 2003 but it would seem that his body has slowly reconfigured itself without telling him. The jersey hung off him. “You look like a fan,” I said, as it was both tight and loose in all the wrong places. Muscle clearly does weigh more than fat.

So was getting himself back into some kind of peak physical condition Kenny’s main motivation to take part in this year’s Strictly Come Dancing? Probably not. I think he needed a challenge and an opportunity to beat me in something in which I “should” be better than him. I say should because I was a gymnast a very long time ago and because he couldn’t clap to the beat until last Wednesday; we are approaching this from very different backgrounds.

On the night of our wedding and that oh-so-romantic first dance, I realised after three beats that this was the first time we had ever danced together in public and that the band were playing the wrong song. Kenny finished without noticing that it was a completely different tune.

If I needed to express just how lacking in music his life has been, I need only tell you that he thought Simply The Best by Tina Turner was the greatest song of all time until we met.

Ten days into training I am beginning to understand why sportsmen are a) attracted to the show and b) do very well in it. The physical exertion, the hours and the dedication may be daunting for some, but to an ex-rugby player it is all normal and comes largely without unwanted physical contact and ice baths.

Last year’s top two were Matt Dawson, in second place, and Mark Ramprakash as the winner. In the previous series, Darren Gough went from being the dancefloor’s Fred Dinnage to its Fred Astaire in the 12-week run and took the overall title, with Colin Jackson second. The year before that, Denise Lewis was narrowly pipped at the post by a former soap star who, it turned out, competed in ballroom dancing as a child.

Not that I feel bitter for Denise.

This year’s line-up has three ex-sportsmen going for glory. Alongside Kenny we have Willie Thorne, the snooker player, and John Barnes, the former Liverpool and England football player. I never made a penny from gymnastics and retired while still a schoolgirl, so I refuse to be called an ex-sportsperson.

As Willie’s sport involves slowing the heartbeat down to stay calm, and very slow (if graceful) walks around some green baize, it would be difficult to say his background will be an advantage, but the patience and the hours of practice it took for him to be great should come in handy. Barnes is a different matter; in him I think football has a great chance of producing its first winner.

“Digger” has been retired from his sport for longer than Kenny, and I am sure he won’t mind me saying that his body has also been reconfiguring itself. By his own admission, the inevitable weight loss is an attractive feature of taking part in the show. There’s a glint in the eye and a certain natural manner to the way he moves and he is one of those tactile men who, in a totally innocent way, can touch a room full of people in less than five minutes. If he isn’t the surprise package of the competition, I will eat my rumba.

It would be great to say “I am not taking part in this to win it, I’d just like to make my mum proud”, but in my ultra-competitive family, making your mum proud means winning it. As a child, post-dinner entertainment was my dad taking us to a running track over the road and shouting “go” — in adulthood I have been known to time myself running up the stairs in an attempt to beat my own pb.

In Kenny I found my competitive soul mate; we can’t go jogging together any more because if he sees a figure in the distance we have to sprint so we can catch up with them, even though the poor bloke we sprint past had no idea he was involved in a race. This makes a three-mile jog a very tiring exercise. Among other things, Kenny thinks he can park better, drive better, sear salmon better and do mental arithmetic better than me.

Having said all that, I have trained with my partner, James Jordan, five times now and I know already that learning to dance is going to be very good for the unattractive side of our competitive natures. The training is exhilarating, as physically demanding as I had hoped and much more mentally taxing than I had imagined, but there is another side to this sport that I am learning about.

It’s a quality I see in every sport when it’s played to the highest level and in every top sportsman I speak to, and I have pretentiously labelled it the Zen of sport. It is about being in the moment and not thinking about what happens next, and yet knowing instinctively what happens next. It is about looking effortless while putting in maximum effort.

As you would expect, I am a long way off looking Zen when I put on my dancing shoes but if I strive for that I might actually enjoy this experience, win, lose or draw. A draw; now that might help harmony in the home.

How they line up

Stephanie Beacham (Dynasty star) partnered by Vincent Simone

Kelly Brook (actress) — Brendan Cole

Letitia Dean (EastEnders actress) — Darren Bennett

Alesha Dixon (singer with Mis-Teeq) — Matthew Cutler

Kate Garraway (GMTV presenter) — Anton Du Beke

Penny Lancaster-Stewart (model) — Ian Waite

Gabby Logan (sports presenter) — James Jordan

Kenny Logan (former Scotland rugby international) — Ola Jordan

John Barnes (former England football player) — Nicole Cutler

Brian Capron (actor) — Karen Hardy

Matt Di Angelo (actor) — Flavia Cacace

Gethin Jones (Blue Peter presenter) — Camilla Dallerup

Dominic Littlewood (television presenter) — Lilia Kopylova

Willie Thorne (former snooker player) — Erin Boag

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• Graham Spiers