We had a work get-together today. For months we’ve been competing in a “decathlon” of various events with a client. We’ve had indoor rowing (we lost that), hockey (we thumped them at that), a 10K run (we lost that), 10 pin bowling (we won that) and something else that I think we won. They’ve got a lot of pretty fit people (they’re a leisure facility with instructors and stuff) so it’s never an easy task. We had to choose our 3 events each from the ten and from that the teams of 10 people are formed. I chose rowing, cycling and the yet-to-be-contested kayaking comp.

Today’s event was the 18 mile bike race. We kind of crashed the annual Windmill Ride in Lytham. The ride is normally entered by families with their kids and old folks on steel green laners who generally take all day and stop off at country pubs along the route. So, two teams of 10 turn up on various machines and in various states of fitness/experience, we’ve all got company-sponsored jerseys so we probably looked a bit daft and maybe scary/weird. One lad turned up on his full-carbon tri bike, complete with Planet X carbon wheels.

The winning team was the team with the lowest combined time – so every minute counted. After a mass start, 3 of us, me, my colleague Dan and John from the other team broke away and quickly built up a large gap. We averaged 22mph (ish) over the route and got round in 50 minutes, after a sprint finish between me and John. He said his legs were burning “like f**k” with about a mile to go so that was good 😉 I crossed the line a moth’s nose in front of him. YAY! I won the Family Pootle!

Our last rider crossed the line some time later and did just enough to clinch the win for us with 5 minutes to spare (then collapsed in a heap)! WAHEY! It’s great to see a load of people stepping outside their comfort zone like this, being successful when they do and then maybe carrying on doing it afterwards.

Me and Budge then rode back the 50ish miles back through Longridge, Ribchester and Blackburn, which was fun in the sun.