A Relaxing Weekend (Yeah right)

After a full on exam week of 7 two hour exams, all my school friends were planning to have nice relaxing-do-nothing weekends. Not me.

On Saturday morning I was up at seven, and then it was off into town to do the women’s road ride from OnYerBike in Vivian St. We started to go around the bays but when we reached Oriental Bay a woman called Ellie and I decided we wanted to go a bit faster, so we split off from the rest of the group. We talked as we rode and she said that she was a triathlete, and was going to do the first Scorching Bay triathlon on the 15th so good luck to her. We continued around the bays and decided to go up Awa Road, to get in a bit of a hill in. So we went over it to the bottom of the other side and back, twice, and then continued on our ride. Eventually we headed up Aro Street and then she turned off to Kelburn while I carried on to Karori.



I got home and showered, had lunch and then it was about time to go out again, as I was marshalling for the Wild Wellington relay. During the three hours I spent at the Alexandra Road saddle I became quite amused. Upon orders from Davo Aldred, I had made a ‘Go Bushlove!’ sign, and so every time a Bushlove guy was due to come past, Marco would be waiting. He would then sprint up the hill alongside then waving the sign madly in their face and screaming to go faster, then spanking them with it as they departed down the hill. Lynskey turned up and debated with Marco whether gears or no gears are better. Then he told me I should be getting onto a single speed. A little while later Tiger went past in a fairy skirt and so Marco and Lynskey departed to wait for him at the bottom of the short climb. Soon enough, I heard them coming, screaming and cheering and spanking and waving the sign madly, they were quite a sight, with fairy skirt and all. My three hours went by quickly, but I got to see Jackson and Rose Green (famous for riding a tandem around the B course at the Belmont round of the PFC-PNP MTB series) as they went past in pirate costumes, hats, swords, the lot. Actually some costumes of note were: the guys in Speedos and swim rings; the floral people who had flowers all over them and their bikes; the chef; the lady bugs and Tiger’s fairy skirt (it matched the pink on the Bushlove shirt very nicely). Check out the photos at http://www.bushloveracing.com/2009/11/wild-wellington-09-12hr-relay-lolfest.html and http://www.onlinefotos.com/site/images.asp?Studio=100000148&Gallery=100003161.

After I arrived home again I had to hurriedly wolf down my dinner before rushing to the neighbour’s house to babysit their seven year old son. I didn’t get home till about eleven thirty, when I fell into bed and started to snore immediately.



Sunday was another early morning, and a cold one too. I clambered out of bed at 7:30 and by 8:50 I was at Karori West Normal School waiting for the PFC-PNP MTB Round 5 pre-ride to start. We were riding lots of the Makara Park tracks backwards and so earlier in the week Dad had put up lots of warning signs. Despite this we saw lots of surprised riders going the “right” way, who had obviously not read the signs. Lazy Fern was really nice to ride up and I was trying to remember when the last time I rode down Koru was. The ride went pretty smoothly – right at the end there was a minor collision on Koru with a non-sign reader but no damage to bikes or riders. By the time we finished it had become a nice day, and Jony and I now had to rush off to the Hataitai velodrome for Junior track coaching. Track was fun, as it always is and we did a variety of sprints and some activities on the grass. By four I was totally blown and in need of an early night.



Getting up the next morning was a struggle but I was pleased with what I had done in the weekend and looking forward to next weekend.