By Jo Hogan It is coming up to the third month of my season here in Europe and I am blown away with how quickly the time is passing! As I have mentioned before, I have been travelling quite a bit between my racing schedule with Bizkaia ? Durango and the Australian National Team. 
At the moment I am in Girona, on a two week break from racing. This weekend I am flying to Bilbao to join the team for a Spanish Cup race in Durango. I will then be staying in Durango for 2 weeks, until the commencement of the Emakumeen Bira Tour in the Basque Country. A great change to spend some time with the team doing course recon, final preparation and improving my Spanish! At the beginning of the month it was road trip time again. I was given the opportunity to race with the National Team in Fermo, Italy. Fermo is located on the Adriatic Coast in Italy, a specular part of the world to ride a bike. Prior to this race in Fermo, it was a busy couple of weeks racing and traveling in Holland, Belgium and the Czech Republic, before driving back to Italy and finally returning to Girona via Barcelona. Three days later I returned to Italy to travel to Fermo. I am becoming a seasoned traveller, navigating my way around airports and train stations and enjoying the challenge of asking for coffee in several different languages. Definitely an essential! 
The race in Fermo was wet and very hectic! Unfortunately in the first ten km?s, at the front of the race, there was a very large crash going through one of several roundabouts on the course, with the road covered in oil. I was lucky enough to be just off the front with one other rider and miss the carnage that occurred. Following this, we worked together and stayed away in a 70 km break, before being bought back by a group of around 30 riders with 20 km?s to go. Jess Alan and Sinead Noonan two AIS girls, were involved in the crash and were taken to hospital for an assessment and fortunately they were later released with minor injuries. Once my break had been bought back I was very happy to see my other teammates, Gracie Elvin, Grace Sulzberger and Tiffany Cromwell all looking strong and ready to attack the last part of the race. The last part of the course was very challenging, descending down a road, gaining speeds of 70kms an hour, before having to jam the breaks on to head up a tight, steep, narrow right hand turn. Tiff charged up the climb and was with the front of the race, finishing 6th, with the rest of us rounding out the top 20. I have been enjoying some really good training in Girona over these past two weeks, thanks to my coach Stuart McKenize and Les Clarke, who being familiar with the area, helped map out some great training routes. There have been a few moments when I have had to get off the bike for that photo opportunity, as you will see! 
Ashleigh has arrived in Europe and I can?t wait to see him in two weeks! He has promised to run up the climbs of the Bira Tour in a mankini, photos to come! J I will post my race schedule for June/July on my Posterous Blog in the next two weeks. http://jojohogan.posterous.com/ Take care, Jo x
