I’ve been up to my neck in marking. It turns out I’m very slow at it and I’ll probably be at it most of Easter. I should have known this would be the case I’m a slow reader but I’ll just have to work hard at keeping on top of thing more next year.

Speedo Elite Kick Board

Speedo Power Paddle

As for training I’ve been trying to fit in. My swimming has been going great. For the first time ever I’ve started doing drills, as I treated my self to some new equipment for my birthday. Just three simple ones, 200m Free Style, 200m Kick Board (Speedo Elite Kick Board) and 200m Hand Paddle (Speedo Power Paddle). I usually do two set of this with a 200m freestyle to finish off but this morning as I was in no rush I did 5 sets and it felt great. The paddles really make your upper arm work.

Profile Jammer

Yesterday I did 36miles on the bike and got to try out my new tri-bars. They do help you go faster but it’s not that easy to stay down in them for very long. Probably due to my big belly.

The next Tri is 2weeks tomorrow in Limavady. The target is last year’s 1:26. Before that I have a 5miles running race on Monday in Whitehead, last year I didn’t finish so it should be easy enough to beat that (I hope).

Girls' Model School

This was a big week for me as I had a job interview. Not just any job interview but an interview for the job I’m currently doing. I’ve been teaching and managing the websites at the Girls’ Model since September but my job was only a post for the year and it was advertised as a permanent post last month. While I knew it was in my favour that I have been doing the job and I pretty certain keeping everyone happy, in today’s climate there are lots of people looking for a job and they very well could have got the job. Glad to say the interview went very well and I got the job.

On Monday night I was pretty nervous, actually very very nervous. I don’t normal get nervous for interviews, as I’ve said on one of my older blogs, what’s to worry about sitting in a room talking about yourself to a captive audience. However, for this one I was nervous. I tried to easy my nerves by going for a run, it was really good but I’ll not be running along the top from Troupers lane in the dark again, kinda hard to see in parts. I was happy that I managed 6.2mi (10Km) for the first time since I got injured at the start of the year.

Cycling to work

After resting on Tuesday I was on the bike today commuting to work for the first time since last summer. Glad to say my slightly sore calves didn’t bother me and I managed an average of 17mph, my best was just 18mph for that run so I’ll be grand in a few weeks.

All in all a good week, my running is coming back, I’ve started cycling to work and I have a job sorted for after the summer. Praise God for all three!

First of all life

Today was the deadline for applications for a full time post doing the job I’ve been doing for the past year at work, let’s hope no one else has applied!!

Swimming

Last Tuesday I manage a sub 30min for 1500m (60 lengths) for the first time, granted it was only just under 30mins but it was good to do it. Then this morning I did 750m in 14:03, which is great because I’ve been struggling to get under the 15min mark and I’ve only came close to that time in races when I’ve been able to draft a faster swimming and also had all the extra adrenalin that comes with race day.

Today's run

Running

After 6 weeks away from running due to injury I started 3 weeks ago to run again. The first run I did was 1.5mi and my leg got sore after 1mi, the next two were the same run and thankfully my leg held up, Last Saturday I did 3.1mi and my leg held up and today I did just under 4mi and again my leg held up but it’s starting to get a little sore now.

Today’s run was round the middle dam at Woodburn forest, it’s a really nice place to run and the sun setting across the dam was really colourful.

Server Move

After a very busy Friday when the pupils were off, but most of the staff wanted a chat with me, I headed home to start half-term by spending the rest of the evening (and some of the next morning) facilitating a server move for the school VLE and sites. The VLE move was smooth but our school site is built on Movable Type and it was playing happy. Thankfully the people who host our sites (Synergy Learning) have great customer support and one of their staff worked with me via email until all the bugs were ironed out, even though they don’t officially support it.

Anyway after finishing off on Saturday morning, I had some lunch and then got on my bike for a ride to Browns Bay. It was only my second cycle of the year and I was happy enough at doing the hilly 30miles even if it was slow and well below the average cadence I aim for. It was good to be out on the bike and hopefully I get out on it loads over the next wee while to get my miles up and toughen my butt which is very sore.

Garman Route

I signed up for my first triathlon of the year, the Try-athlon in Portlaoise in April. Dave & Ian had planned to come but didn’t apply on time so are on the waiting list and will hopefully get a spot, otherwise it’ll be a long trip and boring night in a hotel just like last year!

I also got to watch True Grit on Saturday night (the new version) and it was great. Well worth going to see in the cinema, if you have 2 hours free.

I also managed to fit in 60 lengths on Sunday before church to add to the 60 I did on Friday and the 100 I did on Tuesday. I just need to get rid of this sore calf and get out running again and my training will be in full swing again.

To round off a busy weekend I installed this new theme for my blog and then spent about 10 hours fixing it to show what I wanted. I’m quite happy with the results – do you like it?

Tinker

I started Sunday week ago with a 1500m swim, I’ve done another 3 since then taking my time from 32:30 to 29:39 my first sub 30min 1500m. I’ve also started running again but have only made it twice for a 2mi and 3mi, I plan to run every Monday between my day job and a night class at 6pm. I’m also trying to organise an ad-hok running club with a bunch of friends from my church and beyond. The plan is to warm up together and then head out on whatever distance runs suit them best. I’ve planned a series of runs from 1mi – 9mi and hopefully there’ll be someone for everyone to run with. Tomorrow night is the first night, I just hope my throat (which is sore) doesn’t get any worse and my stiffness and pains after football last night are gone.

I’ve also register for Parkrun and hope to make it along to the 5Km runs once a month once it starts to track my progress and give me a target to work towards.

As you can see we have a new addition to the house in the form of Tinkerbelle (my niece named her). It takes some getting use to having never had a cat or a dog but she a lovely cat. However she has the ability to stop me working at will.

Teacher

I’ve got a feeling everything is about to change. On Tuesday I start a new job as a teacher, I’ll be teaching ICT, Media Studies and other general form class type stuff at the Belfast Model for Schools. I can see this will bring about many changes in my day to day routine.

What’s going to change?

• Since finishing university 5 years ago I’ve always enjoyed known I was getting home at the same time every night. I’ve a feeling this will change.
• Since finishing university 5 years ago I’ve always known that I didn’t need to take work home. I know this is going to change.
• Since finishing university 5 years ago I’ve not really had much job satisfaction in my work. I hope this is going to change.
• For the past seven years I’ve been working on a computer all day long and spent many a distracted 5minutes checking facebook, email, twitter, digg, bbc etc. This is going to change, I’ll not have time but I’ll not be have time to be bored either.
• For the past 9 years people have been able to phone me at anytime and I was able to answer them right away, often giving advice on something technical. This will not be able to happen as I can’t answer my phone in class.
• My evenings have been my own apart from committee meetings and a little bit of study for university the past two years. My evenings now belong to marking and preparation.

It’ll change in many more ways but all in all I’m very excited and feel very privileged to have this opportunity to share my passion for Information Technology Communication with the next few generations.

Sub Teacher

This year I’m only being paid as sub, which means although I have a full timetable all year I won’t be getting paid for holidays (and there’s a lot of holidays) so I’ll need to tighten my belt on the spending. Generous Dermo will be away for a little while.

I have really felt led in this direction over the past 5 or 6 years and in fact 17 years ago before I found out I was dyslexic I wanted to be a teacher but didn’t think it would be possible and my GCSEs only helped to make the point still further. It was a series of coincidences (or as I believe God’s guidance) that worked together to bring me here. In short:

1. University placement in Education Department at UUJ
2. 1st Job post degree Education Department BBC NI online, met Andy who introduced me to moodle
3. Next job webmaster Girls’ Model
4. Line manager took the PGDFHE route and advised it was possible to do
5. Accepted for PGCFHE/PGDFHE through Education Department at UUJ (my old boss was my course director)

I just hope I can do the job now but thankfully I have loads of people in work who will help and keep me right.

Monday sees the first day in the new school with pupils. We will be working on setting up computers for the few weeks. I’ll probably not get to set up or use my new 27′ iMac for ages:-(

What I’m most looking forward to is the brighter mornings and being able to cycle to work and get a warm shower when I get in. I’m also hoping to use the gym in work. Not sure how it will work but it looks good.

The main focus is obviously going to be triathlons once again. I hope to shift 3 stone this year and compete in an Olympic Triathlon. I’ve an eye on a few but will confirm at a later stage. The one solid date we have is the Quarryman in September alongside Mark and Dave there are a few Sion men joining us for that one I think both married to women I once chased so obviously I would like to beat them but they are very fit. lol Glad you boys are joining us in the Tri world.

The next week however will be focused on finishing off my uni reports. I can’t wait to get this year over me. This will definately be the last university course I do. No masters and most certainly no doctorate regardless of what my course director (and ex employer) says.

I’m posting this on my iPhone using the wordpress app. It didn’t worklast time I tried but there have been updates since to WordPress and the App and it now appears to be working. So maybe there’ll be a few more blog posts to come.

Right now I’m round at Mark and Claire’s house so I’ll end the post here and get back to the craic of planning Sunday school lessons and PowerPoint.