Sneaked in a Freefall Ride and dodged the rain....mostly

Mary and Andrew have to win the award for the couple with the most go!  Mary just tucked in behind the guys and got speeds of at least 65 km! Pretty good. 

I should have kept my mouth shut when it came to leeches as I got a lovely sock full of blood by the time I got to Coffs!

Great effort by Andrew & Mary, good luck with building your house. 

Most easy going, fun couple. At Rosewood River, I think this is when I started talking about leeches!

Andrew & Mary looked to be having such a good time that a guy who was stopping at the Waterfalls asked us for a flyer for the Dorrigo Freefall!

Branding gets a tweak

I love this...Running Wild gets all grown up.

Cycle Fit is on its way...

Ran some ideas past Narelle this arvo regarding my idea for a cycling fitness arm of the business.  Got very excited and we're goin to trial this out next week before launch.  TShirts on the way, name of this arm of the business just about to be registered.  Watch this space! 

Excited as there is nothing like this.

Go Narelle..thank you for your support.  Lets ride like the wind!

Katie & Brad

Katie & Brad were here in Coffs to really get into whatever they could find that was fun and active...and so they found us.  Brad tucked in right behind Gary and was game to "Freefall" all the way down!

Katie wasn't too far behind either!

77 years young....

Very inspired with Graham and Judy who completed the Dorrigo Freefall in excellent style. When I asked them both what the secret to their youthful outlook  was Graham said, "never stop."  They both regularly cycle and are always on the lookout to be active. 

Before we lost Janet

Kath,Narelle,Christy(Ventoux Cycles) gorgeous Lizzie & Phoebe

Ride to Work....setting off

Ms Jo Vines.....

Ride to Work

Lots happening.......

I cannot believe how much has happened and we are now in November!!!  First up how much fun was Ride to Work Day.  It was exciting unloading the bikes in the dark at ten to six in the morning and all of us riding off to City Square...all of us being the following gorgeous lovelies...Jo, Janet, Narelle, Kat, Carole & moi. 

We got togged in our Running Wild tshirts and got peddling.  It was awesome to be part of the ride.  Jo & Narelle got their helmet heads tonged to perfection afterwards.  But the classic of the morning was Janet getting lost!  She was too busy competing to realise she lost us!  Of course Jo had to pose in front of her own poster as we rode up to it.  Her comment not mine, "Didn't realise how big my head was!" 

Narelle has the riding bug and came along to do the Dorrigo Freefall the following week.  First up we rode out to Griffith Lookout, NOT DOWNHILL and then Andreas, Narelle, Sandra & Sophia led by Gary hooned down the Waterfall Way. Gary and I were on a high after taking Narelle & her group down. Turned out Gary knew Andreas, talk about a small world.

Been a bit pre-occupied with getting my teaching qualifications approved here in Oz and this has involved going to Sydney, teaching in a school for a week and attending an interview.  Happy to say have passed all of it and just waiting for my approval number and I will then be able to do some casual teaching. 

Our walks are going great and we have taken a few groups to check out the awesome rainforest & waterfalls of Dorrigo.  In particular had a blast with the lovely Willem and Lenka this weekend.  Lenka was sensational; so into the rainforest.  She smiled the whole way round and took loads of pictures with her amazing camera.  Willem (Lenka's dad) is over visiting her from the Czech Republic  and he did so well on the 2 hour walk.  He cracked up when Robyn & I hid behind a huge Fig Tree and surprised him by popping out and shouting boo! 

The latest ride....

So excited, been talking about bike love for so long and now I know why. Latest addition to our rides is, "Bike Love." 

So simple.  Meet at 6:30 am at the Jetty and ride for one hour, taking in Mutton Bird and riding up to Boambee Beach. 

Sole purpose of the ride is to share the love!  Not everyone has a bike or wants to invest in a bike, so here we are with these great bikes & helmets.  For $10  you get to "ride like the wind & run wild!" 

Sole purpose is to get fit and pump those legs.  One hour of bike therapy.  I'll lead the ride.  If it goes well I'll add more days.  Rides will be on come rain or shine. What a great way to start the working day.  

I am so excited as I know not everyone's a runner so getting on a bike is perfect.  There is no better way to get tight buns, great legs and a super cardio hit!  I love it.

Wednesday October 13 - Ride to Work Day Coffs
Ride to work day is absolutely rocking and gathering amazing momentum.  Going to have a Team Running Wild!  Will provide bikes, helmets & tshirts for 7 game people who want to ride to Sawtell & back but don't have their own bikes.  We set off at 6 am outside Planet Fitness and ride to Sawtell & back to town for breakfast. Colleen is going to lead the ride and I believe Star FM are going to ride too.  It is going to be a beautiful event for Coffs, I love it.  How amazing.  Gorgeous Jo Vines (One Agency) is going to ride with Team Running Wild! 
   

Love our job....

How nice to meet great people and get to have fun with them.  Tom & Hilary were so easy going and lovely to spend time with today on a Dorrigo Freefall ride.  It made me very homesick to hear their great accents as they've only been here a month (from the UK). 
70 members of the Harley bike owners group were also riding down the mountain this afternoon on their annual fund raising ride.  Would have been fun coming down on a Harley!

Tom & Hilary

Go Sweden!

Downhill all the way!

Lots happening...

Got the NSW Tourism Award submission in, but what a drama!  Aged me by at least 20 years.  Took on board all the great feedback I got and set to re-writing it all.  I have new version of Word and I don't know all it's tricks and little ways.  I was having dramas getting the spacing right, getting the margins right and getting it to wrap correctly.  I was working on the formatting on the night before the submission was due.  I got the spacing worked out and felt quite pleased with myself but when I scrolled up to the front page I was horrified to see that I had stuffed up the top of my front page!  Then came my biggest blunder, makes me shudder now.  I looked at the undo button and thought I know I'll keep going back & work out where I made the mistake and just take myself to the place just before and all will be good.  So that's what I did and then I did a SAVE AS!  Guess what all that I saved was the first page ALL the rest was GONE!

I was devasted.  I was so tired a sort of calm was all I could feel.  I knew I had a lot of work to do the next day to re-write the whole 30 pages all over again!  I have no idea how I did it, but I did and managed to get it submitted with 10  minutes to spare.  Lucky I could submit electronically.

Will have to wait and see if my submission was good enough. Competition will be pretty tough.

We have had some good interest in our vouchers and it was fun wrapping them up and posting them off. They look lovely in their deep red envelopes and purple & green ribbons.

We did a tour on Monday. Awesome girls; two from Sweden and two Swiss girls.  Weather was amazing and we had a lovely afternoon tea at Rosewood River.  Even took one of the girls to Spin Class at the gym that night with 3 of her other backpacker friends.  We all got right into talking about the Millenium Trilogy and when Petra hesitated when we asked her what she did for a living we teased her that she was actually a spy and was under cover (just like the Millenium Trilogy, lots of intrigue!)  We got lots of mileage out of that. 

Working on our new flyers and making sure all our rides are included for the start of the season.  Know exactly what we want. 

Sharing the love...

Got myself set up in the centre of town on Saturday morning; table, flyers, a photo book of our Dorrigo Freefall ride, colourful fact sheets outlining all our rides a bike and helmet and our colourful A Frame depicting the Dorrigo Freefall ride and of course balloons in our company colours of blue & green.  I was getting right into it, tying a business card to each balloon when I thought mmmmm that's strange I had just the right number of business cards for each balloon....mmm what happened to my lovely helium filled balloons.  Flying away high in the sky watched by my mate Pete who was having a coffee across the road with his lovely wife.  They said it was the funniest sight. 

Not to worry, sun was shining and I was looking forward to sharing the love, love of getting out & about and on yer bike.

Was nice to hear people walk past and say, "That's the Dorrigo Freefall, they ride down the Waterfall Way you know."  Felt sort of proud of our little baby, we thought of it; it is our idea.  It is unique, felt awesome.

Sun was shining, so nice to be out.  Even managed to get a coffee delivered; bonus.

Got some great interest in our ride and loads of people checked us out as they cruised down the mall.  Cool.  Awesome to be able to have such a nice space in Coffs to promote your business. 

Phone enquiries picking up now...getting excited of what lies ahead.

Oh yes I forgot. Was invited by Coffs Coast Tourism to present our business to their lovely volunteer staff on Thursday last week.  I was given two minutes but could have gone on for ages.  Took Asha along and she loved eating the crackers, cheese and fruit!  Was great to bump into Frank from the Hoey Moey; he is such a great operator and has such enthusiasm.  He is doing so much for the Hoey but also for Coffs it's brilliant having someone who is so open and into what he is doing. 

Got just two days to finish off the NSW Tourism submission....it is like pulling teeth.  So hard!

Silver

It was amazing getting silver award at the Mid North Coast Tourism Awards last Saturday and really inspired me to work on my submission for the NSW Tourism Awards.  Got some good feedback so I will sit myself down next week for two days and give it my all.  Would be amazing to do well in this as it is such incredible exposure PLUS get to do some nice partying if we get to go to the awards.  Now that I have sensational shoes I have to get some wear out of them.
Weather is amazing and I am looking forward to getting our Father's Day promo off to a great start. We're going to take our trailer with the great signage on the side to the city mall on the Friday before Fathers Day and sell our special price for the Dorrigo Freefall and also promote our White Sands Ride.  Will be good to get to chat to people and let them know all about us.  Also take our bikes & laptop with our Sydney Weekender feature to show people.  Got our new tshirts ready and even got one printed for Asha which will be nice. She will look so cute.

Inspired

Today listened to Tony Mowbray deliver an inspiring talk.  I got so much out of what he had to say.  His words of determination and his story of survival resonated at a very deep level. The missing piece of the puzzle fell into place. Starting up our new business has been amazing and we've achieved so much in such a short space of time...... we have committed such a lot of time and energy and money to get this up and running (even my dream kitchen being put on hold!) Now was the time to hear about staying true to the dream, staying connected, working at the business and importantly believing that I have courage to succeed.  In the end though it is about knowing what is truly important and that is family and friends. I had Asha with me and I knew sitting on my lap was the best thing that had ever happened in my life. 
I walked up Mutton Bird Hill on such a high and started thinking about people in my life who have had the kind of bravery and commitment that Tony Mowbray talked about. I thought of Colleen, PT extraordinaire!  I had to text her & tell her how amazing I think she is.  She has had the courage to change her life and importantly take risks with the ultimate goal being that she is  true to herself. Sometimes this pays off in traditional ways i.e. brings in the dollars and other times it doesn't but ALWAYS it is a step in the right direction.  We learn and learn by having a go and in the end it feels amazing to be a doer.  When Tony Mowbray said he looked at that wave and in an instant he thought, "This is how I'm going to die then by drowning."  All he could think of in that moment were his kids and that is the ultimate thing to lose those that you love the most the rest is surmountable, the rest is the journey. I felt more sure of what I am about listening to Tony Mowbray and feel excited about what lies ahead.