Man vs...Robotic Horse

Yestereve after work I rolled up at Wildwoods Riding Centre in Tadworth, Surrey, I arrived in the hope of finding a coach for the Equestrian Events and left having experienced something that I'd never have dreamed of...and I have some pretty unusual dreams...

If Paco Robanne made a fragrance for Wildwoods then its scent would be best described as 'Horsey Muck...(I mean) Musk' - sure fire winner with the English Aristocracy methinks.

At this stage I'd like to thank Samantha Lowe, yes you may well recognise the name from The Judo Challenge, well Sam being the joy that she is, only went and put me in touch with her pal Trix, who's also lovely and in turn made a few calls and pointed me in the direction of Anthea Chambers at Wildwoods. Thanks also go out to Trix!

Moving on...

Anthea and Office Manager, Jan Dulake, had a good chat with yours truly and we agreed that I'd pay for a block of lessons, during which we'll try and build in my Equestrian Challenges.

BMX Training

Evening y'all, have you been well? As ever I've been a busy bearded fellow (yes, it's starting to creep back) and I'm now balancing the very different sports of Fencing and BMX racing - can you think of two more distanced events?

I know I owe you the post on The Pistol Shooting Challenge (at this point I'll blame the missus as she's the one I'm waiting on for some photos from the big day) and yes I know I also owe you posts on Decathlon, Tabe Tennis and Swimming...stay with me folks, I promise they're be crackers when they arrive!

This evening after work I drove over to Dagenham for a second training session at BADBMX - the best BMX racing circuit I've ever seen! (Granted, it's the ONLY one I've ever seen, but I'm confident it is the best!).

Coach Seaman kitted me out with a bike and helmet and then I joined in with the evenings training session - I kid you not I was a clear 20 years older than most of my fellow BMXers.

To start with there were other folk on bikes who are legally old enough to drink, drive and get married but once the real work got underway they stayed at the starting line to practice gate technique  - this is to say that they were there to hone their starting skills for the beginning of a race.

Myself and my mixed bag of new friends, ranging from 8 to 14 years of age, then leaping to me at 34, were put through timed drills at diffferent stages of the track.

In every section I was stone cold last.

At the end of the session we did individual laps. My first effort didn't go too well and I almost came off of the bike no less than 5 fives times. FIVE!

Starting my second and final lap I really was beginning to feel the warmth of this club and its youthful members, I'd completed lap 1 in 62.17 seconds - everyone else was managing to nail their second laps in less than 1 minutes more than their first, so I had 63.17 to beat in my bid for glory...

A smoother lap yet my legs felt so heavy on the bends that I needed every adrenalin raising shout of support to get me over the finish line. Once I'd rolled to a stop my breathing was so loud in my helmet that I missed part of what Coach Seaman shouted but I caught the important bit..

'63 seconds point ??...well done mate, that's less than a minute over!'

Connor (14) congratulated me. He'd rattled round in less than 45 seconds...