Nice to have these little unsolicited testimonials. I apologise for the smug posting, but I felt I had to record this somewhere. On Monday, BT were running a UK-wide fundraiser for the London Olympics where staffers were challenged to ride 1km on a static bike in the fastest time. I'm normally at home with the kiddies on a Monday, but had arranged to pop in and have a go in the afternoon. I rode the 9 miles to work to discover I had 10 minutes left before they shut the competition down. The time to beat was 1:05.56 as you can see on the board. After a few tips from an ex-pro cyclist, I took a deep breath and gave it everything. 30 seconds in, I was at 500m and suffering badly. The legs turned to jelly, the breathing became more difficult. At 750m, my "coach" yelled at me to SPRINT. I passed the message on to my legs, but they weren't listening. It was all I could to to keep the same pace. I could see nothing but the clock in front of me. At 100m to go, all I wanted to do was stop, but I held on. I finished, and there was a cheer from the few observers. I was disorientated, confused and in serious oxygen debt. I had no idea what my time was. "Keep pedalling" the coach said, so I did. It eased the throbbing in my legs. Finally, they told me the time - 1:04.68 - I was the fastest BT employee in Britain!
More than half an hour later, I was still a bit wobbly. I would never have believed a single minute's exertion could be so hard, nor that I could push myself so hard for what felt like a very *long* minute.
Anyhoo, for my efforts I won one of these, plus a training session with local (global?) hero Chris Hoy, plus - apparently - some Olympic memorabilia, whatever that is. And my glorious victory was announced on BT IntraVision (don't ask) by Dame Kelly Holmes, no less. I'm feeling really rather pleased with myself.
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