'I hope you have taken your druggies'

Quite a confusing title for a blog post i think you will agree, but think how confusing it seemed whilst riding up a hill in north Staffordshire this morning with the 'group', 15 had already become 3 by this point, and being shouted this at you by a runner coming the other way. I like the two guys i was with, Mikey C of the new Raleigh Team and Mark Lovatt, ironically in his old GB Kit, were absolutely baffled by the comment. I'd still be intrigued as to know what the guy meant as ironically the 1500m Olympic Champion was stripped of his gold medal after later testing positive for the most famous of all EPO types CERA which following this mans logic i should be painting ever runner with the same brush. More importantly cycling, whilst apparently having a lot of cheats if the recent doping relevations and positives is anything to go by, seems to be one of the few sports out there that seems to be cleaning its act up. Footballers, for example, do not even have to be signed up to the whereabouts system only running the risk of dope tests at games...mental! Anyway before this turns into a total rant which no doubt will appear on one of my blogs as no doubt some other high profile rider with test positive this season i best tell you what i have been up to.

This week i have managed to amass a total of 20hrs on the bike whilst starting to put some efforts into my rides, not bad considering the weather here has ranged from grim to grimer, this wasn't helped by emails from my teammate Phil who is in Gran Canaria at the moment living it up at 25 plus degrees. Although riding in this weather can be depressing as long as it isn't totally chucking it down when i leave the house the hardest yards are always the first and as soon as i have left the town i soon remeber how much i enjoy being out and riding a normal life just isn't for me!

In addition to being able to train on the road again the most significant thing going on this week is the Tour Down Under, after a long winter break bike racing is back on tv, improving motivation immediately and giving me something to slob out to when i get back from training rides. It has been great to see the Sky boys riding and even more impressive to see how well Russel Downing seems to be coping with it all, although his chance in life has come late he seems to be seizing it with both hands, and was showing everyone how to corner at the Cancer Criterium during the early stages of the Sky leadout.

Other than that there is not much to report other than i have another 2 weeks of work to do, totalling 6 shifts after which i will be getting ready for the off in the middle of Feb...can't wait!