Being around 10kg heavier than my race weight sure doesn't help!  I've had a reasonably good few months of training - and have been able to comfortably hold position at Glenvale (B grade) and do some hard efforts working for Mick T to close gaps and shut down the odd dangerous attack, so fitness- I'm ok, but weight?  Blergh!  I'm no TT rider, and hills are just TT's where you fight gravity, not wind.  Yuk.  Give me a frantic last few laps of a crit or a long, FLAT road race and I'm in my element!

I think I've been up Hotham now 12 times - thinking ... um, twice before I started aboc, and we've had 6 camps, I've done it twice 3 times (the Harrietville & Omeo double) and 3 times I've done it once - so that's 11 .. close enough.  I've never bothered to time my ascents, I'm usually tail end charlie (TEC) up from Harrietville until I hit the toll booth, and TEC all the way up from Omeo, whenever we run the trip. Always a grind.  Always.  Was it Lemond who said it never gets easier, you just go faster?  I think so ... shame about the 'faster' bit, eh?  I've never had to call the cavalry for rescue, at least.  Pace and grind, keep turning the pedals, keep eating and drinking and we can all get up monsters.  The funny thing is I love climbing Hotham, I might be slow, but there's just something about it.  The scenery, the pure effort, the achievement of getting up it, I don't know exactly, but every time I've climbed it I've really enjoyed it. We've climbed it in snow, in 40 degree heat, pelting rain, biting wind and perfect mid 20 degree days.  It's always different, but always the same monster.  I doubt I'd enjoy it if I tried to set a PB up it, so I'm going to leave the timer off and just do it for the sake of it, every time.  My PBs are on a different course, Hotham, I climb for pure fun.

Anyway, things to take home from this latest trip - Watch out for cows on the descent to Omeo.  Just after Slippery Pinch we came across a small herd of cows - I was on the front driving the bunch down the hill, reasonably fast (75km/h or so) in reasonably heavy rain, when I noticed some cows, and then they noticed me ... and they decided to cross the road.  Now I don't know what possessed them to do this, but it was perfectly timed.  I had just enough time to shout 'cows' and to swerve around the front of the first kamikazi cow, missing the stupid animal by maybe 20cm or so.  Llama and Neil were right behind me, and I didn't see what happened, but Neil apparently had to go between two cows, and one hit his front wheel, amazingly he kept it upright.  I wish I'd seen it, Neil's a great bike handler at the best of times, but that would have been something else.  No-one fell over, which was amazing - I had visions of hitting the first cow, then all 8 or so riders plowing into me, there was no way anyone could wash off any speed with the rain and the amount of time we had to react.  We got our revenge on the species, that night I cooked three and a half kilos of mince beef in a big spag bol, and on Sunday, just to prove a point, I had a porterhouse steak, bleu.  Sweet, sweet revenge ...

Who did really well?  Pretty-much everyone.  I don't think anyone performed below what they expected, and a few learnt some lessons that they'll benefit from in future on long rides in the mountains.  It's great just being able to see how some people can push themselves. I love it when Dino comes to these camps, he couldn't make it this time, but seeing him get up the hill is very inspiring. Watching Llama fly past up the hill at some warp speed, seeing Nick set another PB, listening to Neil's lastest record top speed (108km/h!), seeing Bev do more than she thought she could, and just being able to get such a diverse bunch together on common ground ... I love these trips.

What else?  A few bits of interesting feedback from the camp, some requests for variety for dinner (I did do four different pasta sauces! and icecream? Ok .. I'll get icecream for next time ...), and some requests to have the camp elsewhere, but generally most feedback was 'don't change it much, I like it how it is'.  So I think I won't change it much.  We may decide to run some other camps elsewhere, but I want to keep the climbing camps at Hotham, so I can keep it cheap (I'm a member at Marouka so I get the lodge cheap, which is why the camp is so cheap, $70 for two nights and dinner), and because, well, I like it there.  If I wasn't running aboc camps there, I'd be there doing it myself anyway. The camps are a bonus for everyone who comes along.  I try to make it as fun and beneficial as I can, given that it's basically just me doing all the organising etc, so it's a bit limited, but it's damn good value, I think, and so do the people that give me feedback, no-one ever suggests that it's not good value, and most people keep coming back for more.