[Insert witty post title here]

So, a good 10 months have rumbled past since my last post. I will get my excuses out the way early. The reasons I haven't written for so long are

1) My PhD has blown up and I've had to start doing some real hard graft on it.

I have come to the conclusion that PhDs are basically bludgeoning this monster thing with brute stubbornness until it turns into a book

I want it done by the end of 2014. Like *really* want it done. REALLY. 2014 therefore promises to be an utter, utter slog of a year involving me finding a grindstone and putting my face on it for long periods of time. I WILL FINISH. I MUST FINISH. FUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Yaaaaaaaaay 2014 forecast yaaaaaaay

2) I have been busy becoming an adult (I think). YEAH I KNOW RIGHT. HAHA GOOD ONE.

However, lots of stuff happened in 2013 which gives me stuff to write about WOOOOOOOOOOO (even if I didn't have the time nor energy to write about it).

~SHIT THAT WENT DOWN IN 2013~

#1 I BOUGHT A CAR

This was quite terrifying. I quickly came to the conclusion that if I wanted to go to any races at all with a track bike (and all the associated baggage you have to drag with you like spare chainrings and sprockets and tools and track pumps and rollers) then going by trains to places (with a bike that has no brakes remember) was going to get very tedious and very difficult, fast. 

It's true - driving my car is pretty much the only time I am in control of something which can kill actual living, breathing human beings. I mean, am I going to kill someone while sat in my office? Cycling to work (v.v.v.v. unlikely)? Racing (v. unlikely and unlucky and it's not like I am racing down mountains or anything)? Going shopping in Tesco, no matter how infuriating FUCKING SLOW WALKING PEOPLE are?

Probably not.

In my car though? That thing weighs over a tonne! And goes over 70mph! Holy badgering fuck!

(To be honest, it would really please cyclist-Anna if more people treated their cars as really big potential-human-killers instead of driving being some divine right: BECAUSE I WANT TO GET TO THE SUPERMARKET 5S FASTER TODAY I AM GOING TO PASS YOU REALLY FUCKING CLOSE BECAUSE FUCK YOU, YOU CYCLING PEASANT).

It will therefore please you to know that I am a very very square driver. I hate people who speed with an overwhelming passion (I spend most of my free time cycling, I don't want to die, go figure). I also don't like *literally* burning money so I try to drive in an excessively fuel efficient manner. I mean, FFS I installed an app on my phone that tracks my fuel consumption. I am a 24 year old woman. AN APP ON MY PHONE THAT TRACKS FUEL CONSUMPTION.

OM NOM NOM NOM ££££

I now get rage about really middle aged things like people who hog the middle lanes on motorways:

DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND HOW INEFFICIENT YOU'RE MAKING EVERYTHING YOU CRETINS??!?!?!?!? FUUUUUUUUCK YOU

Oh! Oh! On the subject of cars, I was inches away from death on the A14 in the summer. Got to love the A14. Here is a dramatisation of this moment.

**NOT SHOWN**: Me nearly weeing myself as I went off road.

I was only a few miles away from home, so did manage to make it home. I remember sitting very still with my head in my hands for quite a while after that. Blind spots. Called blind spots for a reason. Please look in them before merging onto poor, unsuspecting mathematicians who just want to get home without dying.

*******PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT*******

I'd really like this video to be more widespread so I'll just leave it here. Don't undertake HGVs people.

*******End of public service announcement*******

#2 I GOT A BOYFRIEND*

*Sorry if this bit is insufferably smug

So you may remember in my last post maaaaaaaany months ago me mentioning about me making an effort to meet some new people. Well, after nearly six months of the complete bullshit and emotional turmoil that is internet dating, I met someone. Funny thing is, after six months I was feeling so emotionally battered by the whole rigmerole that I had basically given up and stopped giving a shit when people didn't reply etc etc. One night I casually sent off a message to someone with an engineering-y name, thought nothing of it. THE REST IS HISTORY *cue soft focus, shots of running through fields full of tulips etc*

So yes, this is Jonny. He's an engineer and he puts up with my shit. (He also 3D-prints me custom Garmin mounts woooooo).

Ha, actually, while I am in the "boyfriend" bit of this post, I should mention the circumstances of our first date. Meeting this guy I basically did what everyone tells you not to do. We arranged to go shooting. You know with firearms (actually air pistols but whatever). Also, the shooting range in Cambridge is under a road bridge with an unmarked heavy metal door.

So yes, ladies and gentlemen, in the summer of last year I:

1) Met someone I didn't really know from THE INTERNET **insert chilling music here**
2) Under a bridge
3) To play with guns

!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?????????!!!!!!!?!!!11????? DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE 
WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING

?????????????????!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!??!!

(It's OK, I didn't die).

And that's the story of how I didn't die and met someone who 3D prints me garmin mounts.

#3 I LEARNED HOW TO DO EXCITING BIKE STUFF

(a) I repainted my town bike in Cambridge Blue Boat colours (yes, I know, I'm a twat).

Before (had already taken off and binned the cranks at this point). Looks like a piece of shit, but is an alright frame underneath.

Stripped down. Seat post is stuck in frame. Oops. Also couldn't be bothered to remove the bottom bracket due to laziness.

NAKED FRAMES! :D (Mine is slightly less naked due to laziness)

MAKING FORK NAKED WITH A WIRE BRUSH THAT GOES ROUND REALLY FAST!!!

Paint work begins...

MY, THIS IS EXCITING. >AND WHAT A FINE COLLECTION OF TURBO TRAINERS YOU HAVE THERE. >THANK YOU VERY MUCH. THIS ROOM IS ALSO USED AS A TURBO DUNGEON

This is the finished product. As you can see it looks pretty much identical to the Cambridge blue boat lycra (ha):

I mean, you can hardly tell the difference between these two images.

(And yes, I know I know the Cambridge blue isn't quite the right colour. The colour used was in fact "Citroen Mediterranean Blue" for reasons of not-bankrupcy-inducing cost).  

I'll also admit it's a bit of a rip-off of the Madison-Genesis paint job:

but imitation is the greatest form of flattery, right?

(b) Learnt how to build wheels ooooooo.

It'd been on my to do list for a while, and a totally fucked rim on a rear wheel meant the time was right to learn what I thought was CYCLING BLACK MAGIC.

I'll admit, it took a while. But now I can cycle on wheels that I BUILT on a bike that I BUILT, WITHOUT DYING and that is very satisfying and makes me feel mildly smug about my bike mechanic skillz.

Also, the wheels are totally fit.

SHINEH.

Photo evidently taken with a potato, sorry. Hope you can still appreciate the inherent fitness though.

:D

(c) I learnt how to glue on tubs.

So, lots of track wheels (and indeed road wheels) don't use clinchers but tubular tyres. For non-bikey people the latter is where you inner tube is sewn into the outer tyre then you attach the tyre to the wheel using special double sided tape (if you are unpro) or a big tub of glue (if you are pro). I was forced to learn how to do this when I punctured a wheel in a race (see later).

Turns out that putting REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLYYYYY sticky glue on a reasonably expensive wheel and on a reasonably expensive tyre then trying to put the two together (when the tyre is a really tight fit) IS REALLY FUCKING HARD.

NO SHIT, SHERLOCK.

BRB, just going to my mind palace to think about tub gluing procedures

#4 I BECAME A FULLY FLEDGED FEMINIST

It all started when I wrote this now mildly infamous blog post. It wasn't so much the act of writing it but the responses I got to it that really shocked me and really opened my eyes. It turns out that when this sort of thing is bought to your attention you notice it all the time.The first book I bought in 2014 was "How to be a woman" by Caitlin Moran. The second, shortly afterwards, was "The Female Eunuch". (The third was a dystopian sci fi novel about breaking up old ships wooo).

So yeah.

I AM A FEMINIST.

FUCK YEAH.

I expect this is not exactly a surprising statement but it felt good to say it, so there.

#5 I (MOSTLY) STOPPED EATING SHIT

Largely due to some very poor nutritional advice when I started rowing (i.e. EAT ALL THE CARBS) I've been a massive processed-sugar fiend for the last few years. When I think of the stuff I used to eat I now grimace.

For example train journeys back from Ely heavily featured entire maltloaves (covered in packets of jam filched from college) and whole packs of raw jelly (yes, really - the Tesco value ones were 8p! EIGHT PENCE! MUCH CHEAP. SO SUGAR. VERY DIABETES. )

I also remember eating half a box of branflakes in one go, frequently. In fact for the duration of my rowing career at least half of my calorie consumption must have come from breakfast cereal.

I'm honestly not sure how I haven't developed diabetes. There is also real culture with Coca Cola in cycling which lead to lots of full fat coke drinking at races last year. I ended the season a bit overweight, and cycling does not reward weight. Not at all. I needed to lose it. Fuck.

Winter training started again and I did what any self respecting mathmo would do and counted calories. Religiously.

This has been the most successful way of me losing weight I have ever done BUT it probably means I will never look at granola the same way again. Also, in all seriousness, I now *really* get the control aspect of eating disorders ._.

Had two realisations pretty quickly:

1) I eat A LOT of food
2) I used to eat A LOT of sugar.

Anyway, when you're restricting the amount of calories you eat, and know exactly where they are coming from, you quickly start cutting the processed shit out. For example you just don't eat nutella when you realise quite how little you will be able to eat later in the day if you do. Processed sugar slowly but surely started creeping out of my diet.

Then weird stuff started happening.

Vegetables, never hugely central to my diet I'll be honest, started tasting... good. Fruit started tasting better. I started eating fish, mushrooms, vast amounts of green stuff instead of mountains of beige stuff. WHAT THE FUCK I WANT TO EAT BROCCOLI?!?!?

What was even more interesting was going home for Christmas (and deciding not to count calories when I was there so my family didn't think I was too insane - MISTAKE) and eating sugar again. And then just going completely batshit insane and EATING ALL THE FUCKING SUGARY THINGS I COULD LAY MY HANDS ON UNTIL I FELT PHYSICALLY ILL. It was pretty tragic.

(Although it took about three weeks to get it out my system I've got back on track again thankfully).


So yes, it took me nearly six years but I think finally I'm starting to eat like an athlete. Not all the time, certainly, but I do genuinely get excited when I buy vegetables from the "expensive and delicious" section in Tesco (i.e. where the asparagus and mange tout are). Rowing Anna would never have got excited about tenderstem broccoli. *feeds Rowing Anna some jelly and locks her in the cupboard under the stairs*

#6 I NEARLY DIED OF A CAFFEINE OVERDOSE

Yeah. For real. Going to save that for another post though, sorry.

*EVIL LAUGHING* >:D

#7 I DID BIKE RACING

2013 was the first season I spent on a thing with two wheels instead of a yellow thing in the middle of a river. In short, it was an education. I did A LOT of fucking retarded stuff but this was probably the best:

I attacked for a prime (sort of halfway prize, usually with money as the prize) then promptly blew my tits off and got dropped by the bunch. To set the scene, it was a windy airfield near Derby. It was miserable. And really windy.

I did eventually make it back on to the bunch (and somehow finished 9th) but those few laps 100m off the back of the bunch looking like a total badgering idiot are burned in my memory with acid.

You know the worse thing? THERE WAS NO MONEY FOR THE PRIME (which I did win). I blew myself out my ass for no monetary recompense whatsoever. FFS. The girl who came with me for the prime also held on to take the win... Just SO MUCH FAIL. WHAT THE HELL, RAILTON.

There was also the time when track racing when I punctured in the bunch sprint. Although this wasn't exactly down to my own stupity it was a proper brown-shorts moment.

Ahahaha brown shorts

So, coming round the final bend of a Scratch race, actually in a good position for once. Really cranking it up and starting to unleash hell.

I have an expression similar to this.

I was sadly not wearing the now famous moustache helmet at the time :'(

I was out the saddle being all FUCK YEAH QUADS GOOOOOO RAILTON GOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Then I felt my back wheel go.

I knew I'd punctured pretty much instantly with that familiar "oh shit I can't steer properly" feeling. Only I was 50m from the finish in the middle of a sprint. Oh yeah, and I was strapped into my pedals.

Thankfully I remained upright (if the front wheel had gone I'd have definitely hit the deck) and I rolled off the track (with a disappointing lack of winning happening) and proceeded to swear REALLY loudly and stomp across the grass back to my stuff.

PRO TIP: Don't do this if you've just not won something as you will look like a very bad loser (which I'm not).

Anyway, this year's cycling promises to be even more exciting (and probably with many more instances of massively screwing up and puncturing) as I am riding for a new team Velosport-Pasta Montegrappa this season.

[Hint] I'm the one on the left :)

The calendar is already packed full to bursting (Belgium! Italy! Herne Hill!) and I will hopefully have a good season and be of some use to my team mates, beyond being the hills back marker... As you can see, the kit is amazing (particularly when paired with Mavic yellow helmets and shoes - so Euro) and we're also riding some seriously fast looking Aprire Vincenzas.

So stealth it's barely visible D: There is a road.cc review here

This means the bike-formly-known-as-Thor has been bodged into a time trial bike (i.e. I changed the cockpit and saddle and slammed the stem like you wouldn't believe) rather than having it sitting sadly in the garage with nothing to look forward to this summer. After all, more TTs means MORE USE OF THE MOUSTACHE HELMET.

^^Coming to a fast A road near you!^^

I will try v v v v hard to keep you more updated this year (I mean, you're going to want to know about me crashing on cobbles in Belgium, right?) These posts take So. Fucking. Long. to write so it's hard :(

So yes, 2013 was a big year. Have I magically become a fully fledged adult?

Me, last week. I have a 3 inch long scar on the other leg from a particularly ham-fisted attempt :(

Yeah. Maybe not. I'll be an adult next year. Maybe.

:)

A rower goes cycling, part I

Firstly, I know I am rubbish. This is my first post of 2013 and it's over half way through March! So yes, it's been over three months since I last wrote anything. FUCK. ME.

Excuses:

1) I've been teaching every single student in the University some sort of maths. 

This basically entails spending all your time marking, preparing for lessons and actually teaching and thus having no time to do your PhD. For people who actually want to do their PhD, or indeed have any life at all, I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT. 
2) I've been cycling lots and thus filled in the holes in my life when I wasn't TEACHING EVERYONE with training, eating and sleeping. And tinkering with bikes. That's important. (I can now properly index a rear derailleur - PRIDE).
3) I AM A RUBBISH, LAZY PERSON.

So yes, many apologies. This is me trying to make amends, by, unsurprising WRITING A BLOG POST WOOOOOOOOO. Also, using fewer commas. Maybe.

Also, while I've been away I notice my pageviews have gone over the 250'000 limit which is like TOTALLY LOADS OF PAGEVIEWS *is smug*. But seriously. Quarter of a million. Whoa.

So, shit that's happened recently.

#1 I have made an effort to go out and meet people

 It will surprise none of you that, as a mathematician and someone who spends quite a lot of time training, I don't get out much. Like at all.

Some point around New Year I realised that I wasn't going to meet anyone turboing in my utility room (and would therefore die cold and alone) so I should probably actually make some fucking effort.  

I am honestly not the most social of people *surprised face* so this decision was kind of a big deal. I've honestly found the dating scene to just massively take it out of me emotionally (it just FUCKS with your self esteem), but on the whole I am at least slightly better at not being massively awkward meeting new people. Which can only be a good thing I suppose.

Railton tries meeting people

#2 I bought a new bike and didn't tell my parents about it and then they were cross :(

So in December I came to the conclusion that my steel, chromed-to-death track bike was probably not going to cut it forever so invested in something that was (a) very black and (b) very carbon fibre.

God, I love that chrome. SO. MUCH. FUCKING. CHROME.

 >>>>>eBay hunting>>>>>money>>>>>

CARBON ALL THE THINGS!!!!!

I then obviously didn't tell my parents about it for a while because I thought they'd judge me.

And then they found out, which was both awkward and inevitable.

What, this thing with two wheels that looks suspiciously like a bike but not like a bike you've seen before? NA, TOTALLY NOT A NEW BIKE.

But hey! New bike! And I got to do exciting stuff to it like glue on tubular tyres to wheels, change cranks and bars and stems and cool things like that! :) Also ride it round and round in circles, which is also fun. Certainly more fun that changing stems.

DEM. BARS.

#3 I have done lots of cycling

This has been quite an interesting change from my CUW days of getting up at 5am, getting the train to Ely, going rowing, coming home, dying of tiredness etc. etc. Now it's invariably just me, a training plan and a bike. I wake up a good two hours later, I get my bike out the garage and I go out cycling.

Sometimes nothing in particular happens. This is invariably A Good Thing.

Sometimes my neck is attached to the rear of my head, too. Just for shits and giggles.

Sometimes it got so cold my kit froze around me (it got down to -10 for a while in Cambridge in January).

Water bottles froze. I wore three pairs of overshoes (ROWERS: like pogies FOR FEET) and my feet still froze. I swear my Oakleys actually got frozen to my face at some point.

It was character building. Yes.

Sometimes I cycled past people who had driven into ditches for no apparent reason in the middle of the Fens.

(They were fine and this has happened twice now).

Sometimes tyre sidewalls blow out and you have to have an emergency stop at Saffron Walden to replace your utterly fucked tyre. This is after retrieving your bike which you've thrown into a hedge in rage after it blew up the second time already.

Sometimes you get your ego utterly destroyed on a ride, you blow up horribly and you have to be physically pushed home.

Later:

Sometimes you are a complete beast.

Sometimes you are shit and consider packing it in.

Sometimes it is SO FUCKING WINDY that you consider texting your housemates saying that if you don't make it home by midnight, please check ditches in the Earith area. Then you crawl home in bottom BOTTOM gear at 70 rpm and curse and swear at the FUCKING STUPID WIND for making it so hard to get home.

 
Sometimes it's just too shit outside (hey! enough of your "MTFU" chat - it happens!) and you don't fancy crashing on ice so you get your turbo or your rollers out and you get the fuck on with it.

There was a week or two in the New Year when it snowed quite a bit, so out came the rollers.

I went slightly insane.

By the time you've listened to a couple of hours of trance and stared at the same paving slab unflinchingly for just as long, your brain goes to a weird, far away place (as if to retreat away from the incessant boredom and pain) and when you emerge blinking into the real world, you're not quite right in the head.

A consequence of this is I can now however roller no handed, which makes me feel like a complete boss (even if I still can't get on them without a wall).

*BONUS IMAGE :D*

Also note the tool board. It's a NICE tool board.

Rollering has been fun - I've certainly now firmly left behind my rower-on-a-bike thing of doing everything at 80rpm and grinding round the Fens in huge gears. High cadence FTW basically! LOOK AT ALL MY CADENCE LOOK AT IT.

This foray into cycling has also occasionally been good for obliterating my ego. There's nothing quite like blowing your doors off 20 miles from Cambridge and while crying into your Garmin having to be actually *pushed* home by your ride mates. (Especially when you start the ride completely smashing it in the face, spending all the time on the front etc.) Oh god, so embarrassing.

For this reason I owe Tim Williams many coffees.

It's like I've had to learn my limitations all over again; 2K race at Nottingham? Yep, know what I'm doing. Some godforesaken hill in the Peak District somewhere? I am invariably dropped after a minute or so. 18K in a 1x? COOL. Do a 4 hour ride? I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING *FLAIL FLAIL*. It's been a pleasingly steep learning curve basically. Rowers often just assume they'll be instantly good at all other sports because WE'RE ROWERS AND WE'RE AMAZING so it's kind of good to have your arse handed to you sometimes. (Or a lot as the case has been.)

I think in these past 6 months I'm fitter than I ever have been (this is going by resting heart rate) - I've never been an aerobic monkey and I think all of the seriously long sessions over the winter (I mean, let's face it rowing sessions are usually 90' tops right?) have done me a lot of good.

I still can't climb for shit. I mean, I've lost a stone since my rowing days but I still can't climb for shit. RAILTON DOES NOT DO HILLS OH NO.

Other stuff.... erm. I still LOVE DA WEIGHTS, obviously. Such obsessions are hard to overcome. Now I have to do leg press though, which is exciting. I always objected to doing it for rowing (since there's no point making leg strength that your core can't support right? -> do some fucking squats instead) but it does seem a lot more relevant for cycling.

For months and months I did 3*20 reps of everything weights related. It was fucking horrendous. Here is how it usually transpired:

Nowadays I usually equate "good weights session" with "has religious experience in the leg press machine".

I'm also running out of plates in Fenners MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Will have to start getting some of the insistently-bicep-curling men to sit on the machine soon :D

>>> FUCKING HELL, I've left writing this too long - this is turning into a massive meandering epic as per usual. SORRY.>>>

Other cool stuff - I signed up with a cycling team, which was unexpected given that this happened in February and this sort of thing gets sorted out much earlier in the year. A team on advertised on twitter that they were looking for some female riders, so I was like

... and the rest is history.

This is me doing my first race under their colours (my first race ever actually):

(Huw Williams)

As you can see, I am really good at pulling exceptionally attractive faces while cycling.

This appears to be a good point to tell you about my first race! So, let me set the scene.

It was February. It was at the Cyclopark in Kent. And I had no idea what I was doing. There were about 15 girls in my race (the 3rd/4th Cat race - ROWERS: think IM3/Novice), about 10 in the other women's race and a metric fuckton of men in the two men's races. There must have been a good 80-100 people on the circuit - it was fairly mental out there.

So, the three other races went off ahead of us, leaving us 3/4 Women lined up ready to go.

I had my aggressive face on. The fucking-amazing-Oakleys were ON. The bike-formerly-known-as-Thor-and-now-known-as-Atreus2 was primed and ready to go. You could've eaten your dinner off my cassette it was so clean. BRING IT THE FUCK ON.

We started.

It was instantly clear that I wasn't very good at drafting people. This is BAD.

One girl fired off the front of the group in the first couple of laps and we never saw her again. The race was now on for second place. (Lesson learned: be more attentive next time!)

Another amazing Huw Williams picture! (Again showing me not drafting anyone).

We got to about 5 laps to go and the group of girls was now down to 8 or so, with only the front 4 girls doing any work (guess which group I was in). I was getting twitchy and pissed off.

So, naturally, I attacked...

...and latched onto the back of a passing men's group.

This was not cool.

I really didn't think about it at the time - I just did it. I just knew I *had* to get away and that if I got a gap I would probably keep it. I stayed hanging onto the back of the men for 3/4 of a lap before being blown out the back, then I just mashed it into the finish. I came second...

...But I came second by being a cheating arsehole. Some girls were a bit pissed off with me after the race, but I didn't really think much about it so I just went home and was like "well, that was OK. I didn't die".

As the weekend went on though I felt more and more bad so eventually just emailed the organisers, explained what happened, apologised, recommended that they DQ me and promised not to do it again. So that was my first race. A DQ :)

Race #2 them came around about a month later (I had an annoying tendency to come down with something in sync with these races, rage). But yes, on the 16th March I was down at the Cyclopark again and I had something to prove. 

A lot to prove.

The weather this time round was what is commonly known as "fucking horrendous". It was raining, it was cold and there was the mother of all headwinds down the finishing straight. That day was a day for a suicidal move. The weather was so shit that a completely batshit crazy move might just work... So that is exactly what I did.

We started. There were a surprising amount of women there - about 20 or so. And my, was it fucking cold.

The hairpin. I was about halfway down the pack. We get to the couple of switchbacks, I move up. We move onto the finishing straight of the first lap and I am fourth wheel back. The wind has dragged the speed out of everyone.

I attack.

ATTACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's just head down till I make it to the hairpin again. JUST MAKE IT ROUND THE HAIRPIN RAILTON. DON'T FUCKING CRASH NOW.

DON'T YOU DARE FUCKING CRASH.

...And no one has come with me.

I am in the big ring. That group is not going to see me again. Because fuck you, that's why.

FUCK. YOU.

It is time for courage legs. I have an hour to hold on. Then it will end. If I can hold on for an hour I will win.

I. WILL. WIN.

...I won and it was beautiful.

As you can see I have not mastered any sort of pro victory salute yet.

Honestly, it was just FUN, and I was proud to do it in ASL360 colours.

 I wanted to see if I could do it really, and a 1 hour TT with a group of girls at your heels is just a good way of learning stuff about yourself. I mean, it was fucking stupid - they were the worst tactics in the entire world - but it was my brand of fucking stupid. And it worked.

>:)

#4 I find myself being a poster girl

To finish, I would just like you all to quietly appreciate the irony of Newton (more on that + yesterday's boat race in the next post, hopefully not in three months time) picking the *most* unphotogenic, unladylike girl in last year's CUWBC squad and turning a photo of her into a motivational poster.

On *that* bombshell, I bid you good day!