Training ride 19/09/2015 42 km

Training ride 19/09/2015  42 km

Looking at the weather forecast as I think about where to go riding today - clouds and showers - after some thought I decide to do a out and back ride to Reporoa - this time maybe trying out a idea that I had for the last few weeks - a few km out of Reporoa is butchers pool. It's a (free) hot pool up a short gravel road with farm land around the pool with the pool fenced off from the surrounding paddocks with a nearby carpark and changing room/tolet 

After getting the rest of my bike gear together I put my swimwear on the bag that sits on the rear panner rack and head out for a ride. As I'm heading out the gate a few other riders pass by on a training? Ride - I end up getting passed by a few more rider's on the rind in to Reporoa - though some take longer to pass there others (with just about most of the passing riders saying hi as they passed)

After a nice warm up I started to pick my speed up from 18-20 km/h to 25-30 km/h (what's a fast speed for me : ) until I got in to Reporoa where I stopped to get a few photos - there was a car parked with many of the riders that had passed me around - Looks like they may of been part of a training camp/weekend - the riders was a mix of men and women riders (most of the  passing riders I see out on my rides are men so it's nice to see more women out riding) - many of the bikes I saw looked like what one would see in a Ironman race or time trail race so it may of been a training camp for Ironman?  Or maybe for the taupo race

From Reporoa it's a few km ride back towards taupo to butchers pool where I head up the gravel side road (maybe 500m up the gravel road) - there's no one else there today  as I walk down to the pool to check the temperature and the state of the pool (it's been a few years from the last time I was there) before getting changed in to my swimwear and head back down to the pool to spend some time in to pool - it's nice to have a ride with a stop at a hot pool in the middle of the ride - staying in the pool until I decide it's time to get changed back in to riding gear and head off for the rest of the days ride : ) as I'm getting ready to leave some people turn up for a swim - then its back on the bike riding down the gravel road back to the main road - I take it a little more slowly on the ride back to my friends place - about 20-25 km/h  as its a nice day for a ride with the weather being nice and warm with out it being hot, some clouds in the sky and no showers : )

Cameras and me

Cameras and me

As some of you may of notice I'm now taking (and posting) a lot more photos of my self then I used to - the reasons for this are a few things : )

1) it's hard to get a photo of one's self when you travel on your own going many places where there is few people - many of the few photos of myself was taken using a tripod (not the easiest thing to carry around or set up fast)

2) many times I'm not smiling in the photos as I'm trying to get the photo right or else I'm thinking about some thing else

3) I liked more to be the one taking the photos so others can do other things and so I could stay in the back round (and it's a lot more easily to hide from cameras when they not pointed at you) and many times I did not feel part of a group so would try to stay out of the photos

And last but no means less I never really liked how I looked in the photos - and yes I know many people don't like to have they photo taken - for me a big part of it was because I was not being the real me and not living my life I wanted to (the transgender side of things) and so the photos of the out side of me was no where near like the inside of me - the person I was inside and many times I did not like the remainder (of me in photos) of that - and many of the comments that (well meaning) people would make about the photos

So just about all the time I liked to be behind the camera - the one taking the photos - not be the one in the photos : )

So what changed?

Why do I now have fun taking photos of my self and sharing then on Facebook and showing people?

Well part of it was because my mum keep saying to me she did not have many photos of me - there's just about no photos of me from my teenage years - there is the odd photo of me in latter years at a horse event or on the bike some where on the road - other then that there's not really any photos of me

With smart phones that have good cameras it's now a lot more easy to get photos with a front facing camera - my mum did get me a selfy stick (a mondpod thing for getting self portraits) for Xmas last year - though it tends to get more use as a back scratcher then with the phone - one day I might get the hang of using it with a phone or camera : )

I'm now getting slowly better at smiling in photos - a big part of that is I'm now a lot more happy in my life so I'm now smiling a lot more in life : )

With so many people having cameras around I'm now some what less camera shy so I don't mind so much if I end up in a photo - I still love to take photos but it's sometimes nice for some one else to be the person with the camera : )

With Facebook making it so easy to share photos its fun for me to post photos of myself on the bike or doing other things like enjoying the sunny weather : )

And last but not least with the big changes in my life I'm now being the real me so I'm now a lot more happy to have photos of me - some of then because it helps tell my story of how my life is and where it's going : ) and I now can have a lot more fun with what  I wear (and how I wear it) and how I look (a  never ending fun leaning experience) - I even have a play with make up from time to time (so much to lean on that fun subject : ) with different make up giving very different looks - and because I'm now a lot less
 worryed about what others may think of me it gives me a lot of freedom to be who I am and have fun with the camera as I do it : )

So I guess in the end people will just have to get use to me taking and posting photos of me having fun and smiling as I look at the camera : )   don't worry unlike like some people out there I won't go too crazy with photos of my self : )

Para-dressage camp weekend

It's a very tired girl who's typing this in her bed so i hope it makes at least some sense : )

A long tiring weekend - it started on Friday - well in some ways the start was a few?  Days before when I decided to go to a horse event on the upcoming weekend - I did have to have a long think if to go or not as I knew it would be hard on me mentally and emotionally as it would be the first horse event that there would be more then 3 or 4 people who knew me at the event but I have to start somewhere if I'm going to keep going to events

  Well the fun?  Started on Friday with first up trying to decide what to bring on the bike (and what to wear) as I would be staying in my tent on site from Friday night to Monday morning - yes I could have bike in each day - riding there and back was the first plan - in the end I decided just to set up camp for the weekend as I did not know how tired I would be and it would give me a safe place to be if things did went to pieces with me. After only getting about 1/2 the things done that was on my to do list (mostly because I just forgot about 1/2 of them as I had to many things in my head : ) it was time to head off - first heading into town (in to a head wind so a slow ride in to taupo) to get some food shopping in also to the library to check Facebook and email (had rain out of Internet on the phone) - in one of the Facebook posts I saw that the taupo bike  ride is making each 4 lap riders have they own support crew and a support vehicle on the ride -so this means that I will not be able to do the taupo bike ride this year - I really wanted to do the ride this year and was looking forward to it as I like doing the longer rides but there's no real point being angry with the people who make the ride rules as its not like It will change things so now its time for some new dreams and goals for me - life is what it is - after shopping I head out to the horse place and set up camp for the weekend 

Saturday - with it being a para-dressage event I knew that many of my friends from para-dressage would be there - in the past its not been a issue but as it will be the first time that many have seen me face to face since my big change I was very worried emotionally and mentally about how people would be around me at the event - even though I do chat to some on Facebook - doing things face to face is very different from being online - it went more or less OK with some giving me a shorter nickname (as damiana can be harder to say then damian - funny how just one more letter in a name can make it a lot harder to say)

One of the things I try not to think about to much at events is when someone is getting a lesson - that is to say it's emotionally hard on me as I would love to ride at a para-dressage event or even have a few dressage lessons but it's just not going to happen any time soon or even in the next few years the way my life is  so I don't tend to stick around as I would tend to just get more upset/frustrated and start crying (and I don't like to have people see me cry - I tend to try to get to a safe place before getting to upset as my legs then start to badly play up when I get upset - ie I can't get my legs  to work for a few hours or more )

By the time of the para-dressage get together later in the day I was mosty out of it with my brain surgling to understand things that was going on - on the outside I may look OK or not to bad - but on the inside I'm not doing well and probably should be back in the tent or other safe place when I'm like this - to much for my poor brain to deal with - perhaps head injury suff? - at some point I head off to bed though I don't really remember much of the day from lunch time onwourd? - I hope I did not bug or upset any of my friends over the weekend (as can happen when I'm some what out of it at places )

Sunday  there was rotorua dressage day on as well as some para-dressage class's on so there was more people who know me - many of then did not know about the big changes in my life - some was great about it some was OK and then there was the ones - Well All I can say is that it could of gone better and leave it at that (in other words they did not take the news well :  (   so it turned out to be a difficult day emotionally and mentally for me - much of the time I do try to hide my thoughts and feelings when I'm out with people - I tend to have some trust issues +not being able to read people causes it's own issues )

At the end of the day I helped pack up the dressage rings before heading to my tent for the night 
And that was my weekend