You are at least lucky that you didn't run into this issue https://plus.google.com/+MarcMERLIN/posts/4RDPCGYCDWq where booting linux on certain UEFI enabled Thinkpads would reproducibly brick the machine.

I have that machine, and I run Linux on it. His post was quite valuable, and that was obviously a bit of a horror on Lenovo's part, but it looks as if a subsequent BIOS update fixed it -- or at least I got a newer version of the BIOS than he refers to and I didn't get bricked.

The machine has a terrible single-button trackpad arrangement, but is otherwise fabulously good as a Linux development box.

(I do also run Windows, in a VM rather than dual-booting)

You don't need rEFInd with Lenovo. The built in EFI boot manager is good enough.