27th August 2006, 17.12
Home, empty bottle of champagne in hand

We’re done! Stage 1 is over, done and dusted. Now we just have to wait until 6pm when we get our results.

Had my MA exam last night and think that went well, was a straightforward fault and I gave a structured response. Greg didn’t ask too many questions, so I’m fairly relaxed about that. The teaching part of the exam went well, I had to teach switch riding (going backwards) for my session. It went OK, didn’t fully correct a problem, but I went back and got them to work on it again, so clawed my way back to the right path. Basically, I taught them how to traverse, then to do little back-up turns and finally a complete C-turn. Again, not too much of a grilling after that. The only bit I’m really worried about is my riding – I know I didn’t ride well this week and I don’t feel I was at Stage 1 standard, but we’ll see what happens.

Was such a huge relief to finish the exam and I really wanted to go for a celebratory blast around the mountain, mainly to get away from everyone and the exam autopsy that was going on – grr, hate that! But we couldn’t quite escape for our first few runs and ended up back at the restaurant for lunch, still mulling things over.

I decided that what we needed was a hike to escape the world and contemplate things – so Claire, Pete and I scooted off to the summit. We plodded up nice and slowly, found ourselves a little cave to sit in and look out over the Matukituki valley. It was just what we needed and we just sat and enjoyed the silence. Whatever happens, I’m glad to have shared the experience with Pete and Claire – anytime it gets too much for me, I just have to think of the summit and riding around with mates – somehow life always feels better.

We’ve given it our all, whatever happens now is out of our hands. But we have to remember that to have gotten this far and to have had 9 weeks of hard riding, 5 days of intense examination is an achievement in itself. Whatever happens, we can stand tall and be proud of being where we are.