It’s now been 6 months since my family and I moved up to Scotland. It’s been brilliant – we’re still settling in really but all the anxieties that we had early on have pretty-much gone now. And summer is just around the corner, so more time for playing out in the daylight.

It’s been quiet for me on the racing side of things. At times it’s felt like a temporary retirement, but at the back of my mind I’ve always known that I’m not done with endurance racing just yet and in time, I’d get back into a good routine and some of my old habits. To be perfectly honest, I’ve just been enjoying going out for a ride on my bike or going for a run rather than working to a set plan of intervals, zones, etc.

Rather underprepared, I’m off to Valencia this week for a stage race. I’m nowhere near fit or light enough to worry the podium at a mountainous, 3 day, offroad bike race but it’s almost a free trip (I’m covering the event for Singletrack Magazine) and I’m going to treat it as a kind of training camp to see where I’m really at and to ride some dusty trails. Everyone on the start list is Spanish, so perhaps at long last my Spanish ‘O’ level will come in useful. It will be useful as long as all I need to do is order a ham sandwich or ask where the toilet is.

Once I get back, I’ll need to unpack my suncream and pack my midge repellent for a trip up to Fort William for 10 Under the Ben – the 10 hour endurance race that I’ve not done for years (read all about that here). If that won’t get me back into the endurance racing ‘zone’ I don’t know what will.

Soon after that, I’ll be lining up on the start line of the Kirroughtree Duathlon. It’s an offroad run of 10K (so that’s me knackered then) and then a fast lap of the red trail at Kirroughtree. It’s my local event so I’m dead keen to support it, but I know it’s going to hurt. A lot.

After that, I’ll have my race organising hat on with another Hit the North, way down south in Manchester. If you’ve not entered yet, go here www.hitthenorth.net

To round off the spring, I’ll be heading up to the Isle of Jura for the Jura Fell Race. Another run. It’ll be fine, I’ll have my lucky socks on. I need to take 3 ferries just to get to the start line and it starts and finishes at the Jura Distillery. What could possibly go wrong?

Thanks again this year for the continued support of Santa Cruz Bikes, Jungle Products, Team JMC, Mount Zoom, Singletrack Magazine, Exposure Lights and Proper Bike Cleaner.