A Century to remember

A good bit of incidental training today. I say incidental because it was quite a solid session, but it wasn't inspired by a pursuit of fitness.

We are at the tail end of a bit of a fitness competition at work. I work for a global company and the fitness comp encompasses the entire company, so it is a fairly big thing. For 8 weeks everyone in the company is encouraged to get out and be active. The goal is to get in a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate activity a week. Of course, lots of people get more, but that isn't really the point. The real point is to try and get people to develop healthy habits for 8 weeks, with the hope that they will establish healthy habits beyond that.

One group of guys decided that for the challenge this year they would set themselves a really lofty goal, they would attempt to do a Century Ride, which is riding 100 miles. Now, you have to understand, most of these guys aren't cyclists. Some of them ride quite a bit, but most of them are fairly social cyclists. Before setting themselves this challenge I would say most of them had never ridden beyond 100km, so aiming for 100 miles was no small thing. However, set the goal they did and so over the last few months they have been gradually building themselves up to the challenge.

The challenge itself took place today, and as it turns out, it was a resounding success.

Despite the weather being a bit miserable, and the obvious nerves about riding so far, about 20 guys and ladies rolled out from our office at 7:00am this morning ready to attempt something that not too long ago would have seemed impossible to many of them.

What followed was quite astounding for its seamlessness. As planned the group broke up quite quickly into two or three groups to allow people to ride at their own speed. Predictably some people set off way too quickly, but on the whole people rode sensibly and comfortably. Despite the lack of experience in the group, we still ticked along very nicely and in no time we were at our first meeting point, 42km into the ride.

After a bit of a regroup and some food we headed off again for our turn around point in Mandurah. Once again those 30km rolled by very easily and quite calmly.

After a coffee and some food in Mandurah we turned for home and the fun really began. For the entire ride south we had been riding into a mild headwind and so once we turned for home we had a direct tail wind pushing us the entire way. Some of the guys took the opportunity to really open it up, sitting just south of 40km/h all the way back to the city. For the rest of us we rode sensibly and considerately, but also at a decent pace for the 70km back to Perth.

On that section of the ride back to the city I got to experience the sort of behaviour that makes me love cycling. When you ride with a group and somebody starts to struggle, one of two things can happen. The first is that the struggling person can be left to their own devices, survival of the fittest in a way. The other thing that can happen is that the entire group bands together to make sure the struggling person gets through the ride in one piece. As people started to struggle on our ride today, the later is exactly what happened. It always renews your faith in humanity a little to see that sort of friendly and considerate cycling.

In the end everybody who started the ride made it to the finish, in some cases it was a surprise even to the person riding. At the end every single person had a big smile on their face, happy with the achievement but also the manner of its execution. Everybody had got down safely and made it back and had fun in the process. Can't have been more success factors than that.

The success of the ride was a testament to the efforts of the organisers. However, it was also a testament to the people who took part in the event. Those people who had an idea for a challenge that was a long way outside their comfort zone, yet attempted it anyway, and smashed it out of the park. coming away with a memory to treasure in the process.

It was quite an awesome day.