Taking Back Control....

....is the line that screams in my ears as I sit here listening to the new Sparta album. Kinda fitting really as this little project has died as of late and has been in dire need for me to, well, take back control. The last three weeks have been an absolute blur trying to get my head around the in's and out's of full time teaching. And where trying to be a bike rider fits around the responsibility of guiding the youth of the nation. Time is precious and I'm learning stacks not only bout being a teacher but me also so thats kinda a good thing. Doesn't help when my load is more than I should have as a first year out teacher....but then again my bank account has never seen this much regular action!

Not a great deal has been going on of late, have managed to crack onto a new obsession for Up&Go drinks...got the count up to three for today....schweet. I think I've finally found the perfect beverage companion to my ultimate food of Golden Pancakes...hell yeah. Time to go write some lessons...6 wks to go...gotta try and get my detention giving count off zero...out, cw.

Let The Madness Begin..

Hello full time school teaching. Goodbye any form of decent sleep over the past week! Term One has started and I got a healthy number of 7 classes to try and keep in line... mostly of year nines who just have so much damn attitude these days....friggin hormones I swear...too cool for school. So it has been a damn steep learning curve the last week being a first year out graduate teacher and trying to swim in the deep end without any floaties. I swear I am going grey already and I just gotta keep reminding myself that I'm done in 9 weeks. And just to turn things up to 11 Spinal Tap style, I fired up the freshly tuned Red Rocket and pointed the rig to the coastal town for the 100km Otway "take you to hell and then some" Odyssey down at Apollo Bay. With around 1000 entries, a massive bike festival and almost 3000m of climbing to do the event was full on. Shame I had already cooked the goose before I got there.

With big $ on offer with 3 gorillas up for the big W the big hitter came from far and wide. With the new Camelbak Lobo strapped to the rickety-rack and a plethora of GU's in the pockets the legs didn't feel to bad rolling out of town at a late 7am race start. Well it seemed that way after the hours I had been getting up in trying to organise my lessons during the week. Then we hit the first climb. Kaboom..lights out and nobody home...dead man walkin'. Oh and suddenly the prospect of not having a little ring on my XC race bike alongside no legs and 3000m of climbing in over 30deg heat came to realization.

Photo Credit: GV RaceTech

The brutality that followed over the next 5 and a half hours was insane. Not that I had any racing legs what so ever to work with, but to try and complete the course with endless amounts of dizzy singletrack, endless stupid steep fireroad climbs while being completely physically smoked before the start wasn't so great. But at the end of the day I made, finishing up in 19th and even got a shot on c-news so i guess it wasn't all bad!

Fasted man of the day went to Muzza who was absolutely smokin'. Big cheques, big smiles.

I'm going for a lie down..wake me up next week some time...peace out.cw