Mark Morrison - from Leicester, actually, though that's no selling point for Leicester - did a song called "Return of the Mack". Now I'm not Mark Morrison, or Mack either, but this is my first post in a while (hence the "return of" bit), in part due to server issues that meant for a few days at least, that I couldn't access my website. Anyway. . . .

Right, I'll be brief in getting things up to speed. Due to my virus, I didn't start Tour Of Reservoir (29.03.09), I didn't start Grand Prix U (01.04.09) and wasn't due to do Tour du pays de Lesneven (04-05.04.09) until Matt Jones from my French team COC Fougeres broke a bone in his arm / wrist the weekend before at Fleche d'Armor, so therefore I had to step in at the last minute instead of doing a one day race in Pontivy.

Lesneven went more or less as expected, having been out for almost four weeks prior to the weekend (therefore not having raced but not even having trained) and still having a tight chest on the first day of the race. I was comfortable on the flat, but struggled a little on the hills, eventually popping on the last KOM of stage one and so cruising the last 25km home on the circuit with a few other riders. Earlier in the first stage I got away at about kilometre two with just one other rider (from UCB), and although we worked well together, we didn't hammer it as we hoped that someone would come across to us. We quickly built up a lead of 45 seconds but then the teams put a man each on the front and simply pulled us back. Jeremie from the team then got in a counter attack though and took the first two KOM climbs, so to some extent I'd done my job, as they knew beforehand that I would not be riding great having missed so much. Once Jeremie got pulled back, Ali Carr from our team went with a move and ended up taking the other KOM climbs, but with points also scored on the first ones, he had the jersey at the end of the day, with Jeremie in second. On the second day we had a team time trial in the morning which went ok in that we rode it exactly as we discussed, though in hindsight could have maybe gone better. The last stage Ali went in the break of the day (leaving us little to do, apart from Cedric, who was with Ali and so rode for him all day) and took all of the KOM points, in doing so he wrapped up the KOM jersey. The race came back together with about 15km to go, but it was job done, and so with not being race fit I didn't worry too much and tried to stay in the wheels and out of the way. I had a minor tumble on the finishing circuit but landed on a grass verge so no harm done.

The following couple of days in France I did a few efforts to stress the legs a little and then about 1.5hours getting thrashed riding behind the scooter with Jean Yves, so that was cool. It's always a shame to come home but that's life.

Once back in the UK the rest of the week passed without incident, then it was off to The Girvan Stage Race, a three day, four stage race from 11-13 April. I went there knowing that my fitness would see me comfortable on the flat, but unhappy on the hills (in a hilly race). As foreseen, when it went up hill, I didn't, so it wasn't the best race for me, as I lost time on every stage, though I was only really there for the training benefit of struggling round. The first day I lost time when I shouldn't have, it was my own fault, I lost concentration through a tight village, slipped too far back and then when the hammer went down and people lost the wheels a small group of us slipped off of the back. The second stage was a crit which I simply rolled round. The third stage was hilly early on. I just lost the back of a group over the top of the first KOM, couldn't quite get back on to them and then had to sit up and wait for a group of about 25 riders that were behind. We then simply rode steady tempo to the finish. The fourth stage was better. I struggled at the bottom of the second KOM though once it levelled out a little and I could put it on the big ring I was comfortable and powered my way along. The descent was tricky with lots of gravel though I loved it and jumped my way through gaps to move up to the front half of the peleton come the bottom. Others were not so lucky, with Matt Fostun from our team coming off at ~40mph. The race was pretty much all as one but then a big crash in the peleton after roughly 65km or so split it right up, and with two tough KOM's coming up that had a big effect. I avoided the crash but with riders all over the place I had few wheels to follow on the hills, therefore the race ended up with riders all over the place. I finished some time down, having rode the last 40km with a small group that had formed, with the riders that avoided the crash by being nearer the front by now being some time up the road.

Since the Girvan training has been going quite well, and my form and strength is coming, I just need a few more weeks. The team raced last night at Mallory Park, with six of us there we rode ok as a team, with Raph taking the win, Squirrel in 3rd and Dan in 6th.

The UCI 1.2 "Rutland-Melton" CiCLE Classic is this coming Sunday (26th April), and will be a tough race, and one that would suit me though my form is not yet at a level to race there as I would like. I have ideas about what I want to do in the race, but helping Dan and Raph as our best options for the race will be important, so we will see how it works out.

I've intentionally kept it quite brief, as to some extent a lot has happened and recalling it all would make this one long post, though at the same time, to keep my run going of mentioning the series 24, all I will say with regards to last weeks episode is oh my god!

As some people say in Leicester, "laters, innit".

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