Anyhow I convinced Stuart to sign up as well (just for the ride really, as the times for placings in the open men's division are in the sub 1:20). I don't know about him, but I quite enjoyed it, apart from getting a puncture which cost me about 20 mins. Not that it took me that long to change the tyre, but after changing it I discovered it needed changing again as there was a very small leak in a previous patch-up that only manifested itself once the tyre was fully pumped up. Anyway it gave us a bit of a break and after that the objective was more about finishing than beating other people. However it gives me great pleasure to say that neither of us came last!
That's my bib, and a bronze medal for coming 3rd in the open women's category (in a time of 2:28). (I also received a box of scorched almonds but dropped those round at Mum and Dad's)
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In other news:
Work has been crazy lately. I've been involved with bidding for research funding and have put together a first round Marsden proposal and a MBIE Smart Ideas proposal. On top of this I have taken up the offer of becoming chair of the SAXS PAC (have to be careful how I pronounce that) for the Australian Synchrotron (SAXS PAC = small-angle X-ray scattering (beamline) proposal advisory committee), and we had a 4 hour teleconference yesterday to rank proposals for the upcoming 4-month cycle. Add to this all the changes going on with IRL having been absorbed into Callaghan Innovation on 1 February, and another trip to Melbourne next week for experiments; I think it's fair to say that a lot has been going on.
Church has been going well. Music practices are now every fortnight and we spend the time going through the songs for the coming two Sundays, and any new songs to be introduced. I still haven't quite managed to get across to people what I mean when I say I play by ear and therefore don't need music... Also Raewyn and I have been playing a few songs at the Tuesday night women's Bible study, which has been really good. We are studying 1 Samuel at the moment (although lately I have been having trouble finding/making the time to work through it). The Sunday morning youth group I am running is also going well and we are having some really good discussions.
Badminton season has started so I have that 3 nights a week: club on Wednesday, interclub Thursday, rep training Sunday. Tomorrow and next Sunday we have singles grading for the teams. I have been struggling a bit with my shoulder in the last few seasons, so here's hoping that it will sort itself out for this year. I'm not able to make the first or last ties (which are both local) but am able to make the two that are out of town - Hamilton and Auckland.
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