Operation Ironman: One Man's Four Month Journey from Hospital Bed to Ironman Triathlon by George Mahood

Author:George Mahood [Mahood, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2015-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

Ben met me on his bike near St Paul’s Cathedral, and we agreed to go and have one beer before heading back to his flat in Whitechapel.

Ben is a very competent London cyclist and cycles across London every day to work in his recording studio. I am not a competent city cyclist, but I hoped my Ironman training would have at least allowed me to keep up with Ben.

I was not prepared for the speed at which he navigated London. I pedalled crazily behind, trying desperately to follow his lead. I had absolutely no idea where we were going, my phone battery had died, and I had no desire to be lost on the streets of London without him.

‘I’m impressed,’ said Ben, looking back. ‘Good following.’

‘Do you mean you are trying to lose me?’

‘Of course not. I just didn’t think you would be able to keep up this pace.’

‘I didn’t have much choice.’

We turned a corner into a housing estate and faced a car that was taking up too much of the road. Ben swerved to avoid it and I did the same. The driver was already hanging half out the window, mouthing off at Ben.

‘Get your bike out of the fucking road, you piece of shit,’ shouted the driver.

‘Sorry,’ I said, raising a hand as a matter of habit.

Ben had raised his arm too, but not as means of an apology. Instead, his middle finger was raised at the driver and a big smile across his face.

‘I’m gonna get you, you prick,’ shouted the driver, slamming the car into reverse and following us up the street.

‘Oh shit. Quick, down this way,’ said Ben, cutting across the street and into the car park of a block of flats.

The car had screeched around the corner, and then turned around so that it was now facing us.

‘Isn’t this a dead end?’ I said.

‘This way,’ said Ben, following the car park around to the back.

We could hear the car engine getting louder behind us. This wasn’t quite how I had hoped my nice weekend in London was going to be.

We hastily cycled alongside the wire fence at the back of the flats, all the time expecting the car to come screaming around the corner. Eventually, a gap appeared and a footpath led away from the block of flats further into the housing estate. We hopped our bikes up the kerb, dodging around shards of broken glass, and pedalled frantically down the pathway, into a cul-de-sac, onto another pathway before eventually meeting the sanctuary of a main road.

‘Oops, sorry about that,’ said Ben.

‘You idiot. What did you do that for? Did you want to get us both killed?’

‘No, I don’t know what came over me. Sorry.’

‘Couldn’t you just have waved like I did?’

‘He was in the middle of the road. The knob.’

‘Yes, but we did turn that corner pretty quickly.’

‘Well, that’s not the point.’

‘Is this like a regular day in London for you?’

‘Not at all. I would never normally stick my finger up at a driver like that.

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