As the spring weather starts to offer its traditional mix of sunshine, showers and the occasional frost so the racing calendar is beginning to move towards its traditional Easter kick-off in just a month's time. Organisers are beginning to move their durations onto the roads rather than the tracks, although one or two roads round these parts look more like something you might find in the depths of some un-developed country after the Winter's ravages..., and we have the first of the big duathlons at Clumber Park with their 10k 40k 5k and 5k 20k 2.5k distances. Anyone looking to qualify for the Worlds in Gyor or the Europeans in Edinburgh will almost certainly be headed towards Nottingham for the Clumber events but those who don't want, or need, that kind of pressure have plenty of choice elsewhere.

The younger triathletes have a race of their own up in Tameside near Lancaster, the Scots have one of the Oxygen series and Staffordshire sees the first of the Chase Race on-road series. However, the majority of the action is down in the South where the M3/M4 corridors will be buzzing. To the far West we have the Cheddar Aquathlon, hopefully not an event which will see the venue flooded out as it was a few years back, while Hampshire can offer both on-road with Avon Tyrrell and off-road with the final race in the Monsterman series -- that will be muddy given all the recent rain!! And, for the first time as a Spring event, we have the Ballbuster, that legendary 8M 24M 8M gut-buster round Box Hill in Surrey. that's where we'll be based this weekend and we hope to have pictures and a race report up for you on Sunday. However, if you're racing this weekend don't be shy, send us a report and any pictures of your event and we'll add them into the Monday morning round-up.

The final event of the weekend is the Tri-UK Team launch down in Yeovil and our very own columnist Bob Holloway will be there to sign autographs and pick up his new bike and kit. We'll have a report on that as well for your Monday read.