Waterguns & Toothless Physios
How to enjoy trans-European bike challenges when you hate cycling.
It goes without saying that to enjoy a feat of physical endurance for the purposes of fundraising you absolutely have to know WHY you’re doing it. You can read about our motivation and about the #ZoeChallenge in some of our other Medium posts.
You also have to know HOW you’re going to do it. Especially those of us who prefer fishing to spin classes and are more used to sitting in boardmeetings than the saddle. My simple solution: team.
We have a fantastic team at Hope for Justice, here’s a snapshot of how they’ve made this a great adventure so far…
An Unexpectedly Dangerous Gift
Our Senior Designer, Isaac, is on the road with us, recording us as we cycle from Latvia to the UK. Thursday was his birthday and the team back at Head Office had hidden his birthday gift in my luggage. Amongst other things it included two waterpistols.
Now, Isaac’s the kind of guy who makes everything fun which aside from his prodigious talent is why we love having him around. (I’ll just skip over the fact that he got waterpistols for his 30th birthday because his face tells you everything you need to know about how awesome he is).
The weather in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland has been a balmy 80F and Isaac and our team physio, Neil, decided to cool off with a waterfight whilst they waited for us. Neil ran out of water and, rushing to refill his gun, hastily twisted the cap off with his teeth. He immediately came to regret this decision.
As you can see he bore this attractive calamity with characteristic good humour. With miles ahead of us and more than a few gruelling climbs he gave our whole core cycling team the howls of laughter we really needed by looking like a cheery, stubbly-faced toddler.
Later the same day we were approaching the foot of another hill and I just had nothing left in my legs. We already had some long days behind us and this was just one hill too far for me. Right in my moment of quiet desperation, Jim, another of our Team Zoe core cyclists dropped back to cycle with me. As the hill started to slope up in front of us he reached across and put his hand on my back giving me the extra momentum I needed. Despite all the energy it cost him he stayed like that alongside me all the way up.
There is so much power in great team, so much capacity to change our thinking with encouragement of every kind.
If you’re going on any adventure in life, spot the people in your world who make every day fun and take them along for the ride. There are going to be days when you need them.
One more thing, plan to be surprised. Sometimes the road will just disappear from under you…
3 days down, 16 to go! Keep up with our exploits in The Zoe Challenge collection or on Twitter.
