Irish racing anyone?

Alrighty, so almost within a day of publishing my last blog the racing calendar is already out of date! Last Saturday evening I attended my old club Addiscombe CCs club dinner with my girlfriend, Sarah. While we where there, and in between keeping her from getting too bored with all the cycling chatter, I had a quick chat with Keith Butler, chairman of the Surrey Cycle Racing League. Traditionally the Surrey League have sent composite teams to stage races in Ireland and Wales, or wherever else they might have contacts. Anyhow, Keith invited me to ride the Rás Mumhan over the Easter weekend. Now I don't know too much about it yet, other than its counted as a National Elite race by the UCI, and it's 4 days long. Oh, and apparently Irish racing is a heck of a lot hotter than UK racing on the whole. We're talking 35mph+ from the gun. Being Easter, you can also count on some wind and rain to throw into the mix, along with a couple of really decent teams. So it'll be great experience for me, and I'll likely be racing alongside some South East racing royalty who will be more than capable of looking after me and showing me the ropes. The best part is apart from food, it's all paid for by the League too, just what a student likes to hear. I'll post more details as and when, but I'm really looking forward to it.



So, the other change is that the day after riding (winning!) the Uni Road Race I'm now off to Belgium for the Omloop Oedelem instead. Man, thats gonna be one tough weekend! I do love Belgian race names though!! However, all this could still change too... As, and this is quite a big if... If I rode a decent race at Easter, I would possibly get and invite to ride the actual Rás. Which up until they started the Tour of Ireland in 2007, was Irelands national tour. As such, it is a UCI ranked 2.2 stage race, which means it's basically a full on Pro race. Just with about half the field made up of smaller amateur teams. Never the less, it is a huge race, and would be bigger than anything else I could ride this year. However, not only does it start the same weekend as the Uni RR, it is probably going to clash with my final exams! Nooo! It would be such a huge opportunity, but I guess we'll have to see what happens.

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Anyhow, apart from the developments on the race calendar, it's been a fairly standard week. Well apart from getting held up by a flock of sheep the other day. Have been on a bit of a rest week this week, which is handy as the weekend sees my second race of the season over at Hillingdon. Being nice and fresh, and with a couple of good weeks training done will hopefully mean I can be a bit more competitive this week. Hopefully I'll make it into the top 5 at least, if not make damn sure one of my team mates is first across the line...

Ok, that'll do for now, I just have one question for you all... Should a drink that's meant to be really really good for me, really be this kind of colour!?