Giving a nudge - Giving back

I recently learnt that a good friend on mine, Simon (@simonski on twitter) has finally got back on his bike, after several years of “inactivity”. Simon is the one that I looked up to when I arrived in London and regarded him as the uber-biker-knowing-everything-about-bikes at the time, and who helped me chose my first road bike and encourage me to get into doing a small triathlon. As such, he will always be the “cool dude that does triathlons”, no matter what!

In the past years however, he’s got the joyful feeling of raising two lovely boys, and his training somewhat shrunk. Couple that with a few injuries and he wasn’t really motivated to go back doing much (from his own words). I tried to encourage him a few times to get back on his bike and offered to go for a ride together, but we’ve both been busy and didn’t find the time.

But last week-end, he did it! He went back on his bike on a cold day, climbed a few hills and even fell on one, but he’s back! Now that was my moment to give him the nudge I’ve always wanted to give him: get him into a small race once again!

But he wouldn’t do it himself! So… I registered him.

That’s right, Simon is now entered in the Human Race sprint distance triathlon on Sunday 26th May 2013, and I’m sure he’ll do well! I’ll be there to push him along on course. Obviously I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t sure he can do that. In fact, I think he could do an Olympic, but let’s not scare him too much!

Finally, I get to give back, and I feel this is just the beginning.