With less than 100 days to go until the kick off of Glasgow 2014, our athlete ambassadors have been keeping themselves busy with a full schedule of training and heats, and helping our teams and wider community get into the spirit of the Games.
Hear what Elinor Barker had to say following her recent trip to our Glasgow site:
The last few months have been jam packed. Since returning from Columbia and February’s Track World Championships, I’ve been splitting my time between my home in Cardiff and my track base in Manchester – as well as racing at London’s Olympic Velodrome, attending training camp in Italy and road racing in both Holland and Belgium!
Alongside all the racing, I was recently able to spend a couple of days in Glasgow visiting the team at Dell. It was great to meet everyone but I was quite nervous speaking in front of over 200 Dell employees!
The staff Q&A was great but the real fun started when I took on some of the Dell team in a Wii tournament. The game of choice was a team pursuit simulation so I was pretty confident as the Team Pursuit World Champion! Not only did I get beaten by the majority of the staff but I was even lapped by the opposing team! I think I will stick to my trusty track bike from now on.
While in Glasgow, I also had the pleasure of giving some tips to Dell employees who were considering buying a bike or taking up cycling through Dell’s Bike4Work campaign. It was great to be able to give advice on which style of bike and equipment suited their individual needs and budget. Cycling is constantly growing and becoming more accessible through program’s like Dell’s Bike4Work.
The thing I most enjoyed was seeing how enthusiastic people were about taking up the sport was impressed by how many seasoned cyclists Dell already had in their ranks! It is great to see the impact cycling has had and the joy it brings to people, whether as a mode of transport, a form of exercise or when being competitive.
The amount of travel I’ve done lately has been both exhausting and thoroughly enjoyable. But, while on the road, I’ve been lucky enough to use my Venue 11 Pro tablet to keep in touch with my family and friends through Skype and social media. This has become extremely important to me recently as my older sister has just begun a year-long trip around the world so keeping up with her adventures has become almost a full time occupation. I’ve also been able to make the many plane and train journeys I have to take as everything starts to ramp up for Glasgow 2014 much more entertaining as I can now feed my Game of Thrones addiction from almost anywhere!
For more information, visit http://www.dell.co.uk/glasgow2014
Follow Elinor’s journey on Twitter: @Elinorbarker and follow the conversation online: @thecgf, @delluk, @glasgow2014