Formatting Failure

Not sure what happened with the formatting of my previous post, but I'm sure you got the gist.

BIKES ARE BETTER THAN STUDY !!!!!

It's over.  After 18 months of personal time being taken up by study, I handed my final assignment in on Monday morning.  I ended up curled up on the floor at work and had a chuckle with one of the other girls.

Study finished, I curled up in the foetal position for some down time and a laugh

Never in my life have I been so sedentary.  Sunday afternoon I had the guts the look at my training calendar for 2013.  It was looking as miserable as I was feeling.  I sent an email to my always supportive riding friends - it went like this:

"I've just downloaded my Garmin and was actually game enough to look at my exercise files of 2013.  The black lines are days that I have been on the bike.  January (raced mid-Jan) was looking pretty good - 4 days a week.  Then look at that....I did a subject in Feb and I went down to 2 - 3 days a week.  March was assignments - 1 day a week.  April was a subject and assignments - 4 times in the entire month (2 of those were stress relief whilst at uni).  May....well, what can I say - half my May training was this weekend just gone (the end of my assignments and the start of my life again).

But the good thing?  See those green lines for the next 3 months?  They are races that I AM GOING TO.  And of course all the rides that go in between them.

But for now, I still have another 2 - 3 hours of assignments to do.  But this is just a screen shot of my 2013.  I will NEVER take on study again whilst working full time.  I WANT MY PERSONAL TIME AS MY OWN.  And I want my body back, too.....  And I don't want to fall off my bike as many times as I did today.   Nor get that close to Wire Grass again....it tastes funny, and made the bottom half of my face itchy."

So my life begins again.  And it started with a good 2.5 to 3 hr ride in the Mt Dandenong Sylvan Trails.  Lots of climbing, lots of fun descending.  And more than my usual share of falls.  All slow and stupid, but falls none-the-less.  And I realised that mountain biking is hard.  I guess you take it for granted that, when you ride on and off all the time, you've still got a fair bit of fitness.  But starting from scratch is HARD.  And I also realised that you can go out on the road bike and do an easy ride, but riding the type of fun, technical trails I like, there is no easy.  It's long steady climbs, then a pinch climb that you just don't have the legs for but refuse to be defeated by the climb.  So it's all hard.  

I was purely exhausted after the ride and would have liked a nice nana-nap, however another 5 hours of study had to be done to complete that assignment.  

I promised the dogs I would not touch my laptop for a couple of nights, and instead spend the time walking and playing with them.  They have been such good babies throughout all this, and if there was any way I could thank them more, I would.  And they have helped me through all this too.  The laughs they give me without even trying - I took them for a long walk Saturday morning, beginning by going past the tennis courts where they get very excited about all the dozens of tennis balls flying around and rolling on the ground.  They always look for holes in the fence to try and get the balls.  In this case there was a competition game being played - the ball went astray and ended up rolling next to the fence where the dogs were.  Beep stuck her head under the fence, pinched the ball, then ran off down the path waiting for me to throw it to her !!!  The people playing tennis obviously wanted their ball back, but had a good chuckle at the same time.  Beep was well put out when I returned the ball under the fence.  

It's taking a while to get used to not having study to do all the time.  I sat down to watch a couple of Big Bang Theory episodes on Monday night, and 3 times during these I thought it was Friday night because that's the only time I turn on the TV when I've been studying.  Seconds later I realised that I shouldn't feel guilty for not studying, and unfortunately I had to go to work the next day.  So a brief feeling of pleasure followed by a sense of doom that it wasn't yet the weekend.

I look forward to writing of my riding exploits and my training, like life used to be.  Only different.  

Bikes are Better Than Boys...and girls on bikes descend faster than boys too !!!

I recently purchased not one, but three pair of bright pink cycling socks with the slogan 'Bikes are Better Than Boys!'  What better way to enjoy getting dressed on a cold day than to look forward to putting on those socks.  And as I proved today, girls on bikes descend faster than boys too!

A brief break in the weather and study on Sunday prompted me to get out on the road bike, even for just an hour.  I was climbing slowly and a rider passed me early on.  Numerous riders were tentatively descending while I climbed, obviously scared with the wet road.  

While climbing I was assessing each corner as to how wet it was, and whether I could carry normal speed into the corners or slow down a little.  As I was nearing the top the guy who passed me on the climb was descending.  At the top I turned round and wondered whether I'd catch him or if he was long gone.  It's always good to chase someone down - a great feeling!

About 1/3 of the way down a car passed me but got stuck behind the rider in front on a windy section.  I sat behind the car and slip-streamed, enjoying the rest for my very unfit legs.  A couple of corners on a car behind me tooted its horn at me.  How rude!!  Even if I did pull to the left, where was he going to go???  So I stuck to my slip-stream line, didn't even look back at him, and kept on descending (even if it was slower than I'd hoped).  Eventually the roady guy in front pulled off to the road to let the cars go by!  What a stupid move, even if he was descending like a girl.  So I stuck to my slip-stream line and passed him, leaving him far behind me very quickly.  I was very happy to be wearing my pink jersey, just to make sure he could see it was a girl smoking him on the descent!!  The rest of the ride went to plan, cornering beautifully and only having the 'tooting' car pass just before the final corner - goose.  

I returned home with a big smile ready to continue studying.  And speaking of that, the dogs have been amazingly good over the weekend, even though I've had to spend so many hours in front of the computer.  Between walks and games with the ball, they have been content enough to snooze for the most part of the day, especially Saturday that was miserably rainy and cold.  All was great until 5 mins before I was going to pack up and Buzz decided it was time to get some attention.  The 3rd photo below was the result - I didn't mind him treading on my fire prediction map, but it was treading on the keyboard with 2 feet that had me concerned, followed quickly with UNDO UNDO UNDO.  But how can I go cranky on such a beautiful boy?  Thanks to the boy and girl for being such good babies.

Buzzy being sleeping in the warmest spot on a cold day

Yes there is a little girl in that blanket - can't you see her head?

'But mum....I've been sooo good all day...can't we play now?'