If you thought that you could pause for breath after last weekend's excitement - well, think again! It's a true mid-summer weekend and we need all the extra light that the solstice can bring to fit everything in.

As well as a packed domestic schedule, of which more in a moment, there's a positive conucopia of international racing at all levels as well. There's Ironman racing in Nagasaki, Japan where a 15-hour cut-off and a mainly Japanese field will be doing their stuff in the very early hours of Sunday morning UK time. International pro athletes include Luke McKenzie, Byung Hoon Park, Kieran Doe and the unstoppable Petr Vabrousek. The women's field includes Rebecca Preston, Nicole Klingler, Hillary Biscay and GB gets representation from Anne Fallows. I'll tip Luke for the win and go out on a limb for Biscay to head up the women's field.

It's Coeur d'Alene for the other IM race this Sunday and the pro field here is even harder to call with Bryan Rhodes, Francisco Pontano and Max Longree all pretty much certain of a podium slot. The women's field has Kate Major, Edith Niederfriniger and Heather Wurtele as the defending champion. My pick for the weekend is Max Longree who has a blistering turn of speed on the run and Edith Niederfriniger for no better reason than I just love her racing style! Oh, and look out for Dave Orlowski, one of the original Hawaii Ironmen, who will be tackling his second IM of the year. I watched him race in South Africa and spent some time talking with him afterwards about the early days and his return to the sport with a five year quest to race all the events on the circuit - really must write that story up one day soon! Both IM races will get the usual live coverage treatment on Ironman Live (www.ironmanlive.com )

The short-course focus turns to Washington where the latest installment of the Dextro Energy World Championship Series will unfold. The ITU's website (www.triathlon.org) has some pretty decent preview articles but the general concensus round the coffee pot here is that the women's race is pretty much a done deal: any event with Snowsill and no Fernandes should have an obvious outcome! Laura Bennett always performs well on home turf and Emma Moffatt really ought to be up there as well. GB representation on the start list is down as Helen Jenkins, Kerry Lang and Jodie Swallow [UPDATE: Jodie, we believe, will not be racing].

The men's race is very interesting: you don't want to be in a sprint finish with Bevan Docherty, you don't want to let Al Brownlee dominate the run (although I suspect they may be wise to that one now...) amd Matt Reed has been tearing up everything except ITU races and is due to sort that omission out. We've had a great couple of races in the series and it will be interesting to see if the breaks can come again or if we are back to the old 'one pack' formula. Will Clarke, Tim Don and Stu Hayes are on the start list as well and you can follow the race live on the ITU website. Full details of the excellent online coverage HERE.

The European U23 Championships in Italy will see Jodie Stimpson and Aaron Harris looking to be in serious contention for medals - if Jodie can keep her form of the last couple of weeks at Blenheim and Windsor. Aaron faces a bit more in the way of competition with the likes of Polyansky, Vasiliev and Raphael all in the field but there's a possibility that Polyansky may be in Washington.

Domestic action is headed up by the National Age Group Championships in Northumberland where Jill Parker (2nd elite at Windsor) and Lucy Bowen (5th elite at Windsor) should be in with more than a chance of success [UPDATE: we believe Lucy may be racing in Liverpool]. The men's field lists both Fraser Cartmell and Phil Graves - interesting to see how the rigours of last weekend's UK Ironman 70.3 will have affected them [UPDATE: Fraser is actually racing in Stein, Netherlands at the Dutch Long Course Champs over 3k/110k/30k].

The rest of the calendar still reads like a Who's Who: standard distance races include the hugely popular Dambuster, the South Cerney Classic (and Sprint), the Deva Triathlon, Harwich (also with a Sprint) and the Liverpool Triathlon, see our event preview for this one HERE.

Shorter races can be found at Leybourne Lakes, Henley on Thames, Ayr, Allerthorpe, Cerist and Marlborough with a couple of ladies only events at Bilton Grange [UPDATE: cancelled...]. Which just leaves the Tan Hill Duathlon, yes we did say duathlon, and the second of the Open Water Swim aquathlons at Liquid Leisure's lake in Datchet.

Don't forget that you can watch the highlights from round one of the British Triathlon Super Series, the National Elite Champs from Strathclyde, on Channel 4 on Sunday morning at 8.30am. More details here.