I’m part of a lottery syndicate at work. We don’t win much but what we do win we put aside and spend on a Christmas lunch for everyone. Some years it covers the starters, others it’ll cover a turkey and all the trimmings. We have never had a year when it’s covered a bottle of champagne to celebrate, we’ve never been big winners.

But, other that that, I’ve never won anything. No spot the ball contests, church raffles or multi million pound payouts. Nothing, that’s all I’ve got, until last week.

And what did I win?

Pain. And suffering.

Which are not prizes anyone wants to win. A speedboat is a great prize. Money is a great prize. No one enters a competition and hopes to get hurt. Except me.

Everyone who takes part in the Celtman Solo Point Five race is automatically entered into a draw* for the opportunity to enter the Celtman full race next year. 25 places are available and a random draw takes place after the race to offer 25 entrants a place in Celtman. And I won.

Or lost.

Because now I have a year to train for Celtman and to try again and win a blue or white t-shirt through 4k of swimming, 120 miles of riding and a marathon over a mountain.

And yet the losers of this competition get to put their feet up.

It doesn’t seem fair! 🙂

But, Andrew TwinBikeRun, you say, you don’t have accept the place. It’s not compulsory.

That’s true, but where would be the fun in that?!?

Celtman 2024 entered!

*The draw was conducted by ChatGPT and the AI selected 25 people randomly from the Solo Point Five entrant list. I’m glad the organisers used ChatGPT and not GlasgowGPT as the very sweaty Glasgow AI describes Celtman as this: