It's Time To Wave Bye Bye To Leeds

Lazy-ish day. Lie in. Sex.

Do a bit of prep for the Tri by servicing my bike. I try to adjust the gears, which keep catching on the front derailleur but end up making it worse.

Then I settle down to the excitement at the bottom of the Championship. It's a kind of sweet irony that former Leeds United chairman and notorious reckless spender Peter Ridsdale puts the lid on Leeds' relegation coffin when his Cardiff team deem to lose at home to Hull, who were the only team still within Leeds' reach. However it is Leeds themselves who hammer the nails in when they concede an 89th minute equaliser at home to Ipswich.



All that remains now is for Derby to administer the last rites next Sunday. Leeds only means of escape is to win at Derby, Hull to lose at home to Plymouth and in the process overturn a nine goal goal-difference deficit. Mind you with Derby involved, you can never rule these things out.

Derby are as good as in the play-offs as their automatic promotion hopes are dented by Birmingham overcoming having a man sent off to win 2-0 against Sheffield Wednesday. Derby now need an unlikely win at Crystal Palace on Sunday to prevent both Sunderland and Birmingham going up to the Premier League.

Talking of the 'mighty' Premier League, West Ham are found guilty of illegally signing their two Argentinian players and are fined £5.5M but are not docked any points. The FA thought that that would be unfair as any points deduction would almost certainly relegate them. So apparently, playing the two players, which they had no right to even have, for the last six months was not unfair to their relegation rivals. The fact that one of the players, Carlos Tevez, has been instrumental in their current run of good form doesn't seem to be unfair to any one? To rub it in Tevez had a tremendous game in today's 3-0 win at Wigan which drew the Hammers level on points with their opponents. Wigan are understandably not impressed.

I had intended an alcohol free night but L tempts me with a pint at one of our locals, the Willoughby. It's a pub we’ve not frequented for many a year, instead preferring the better ale at the Hardy’s and Hanson’s owned Wheelhouse. They used to do a reasonable but not spectacular, if such a thing is possible, pint of Directors. Of course we are now boycotting the Wheelhouse since H&H sold out to Greene King. The choice at the Willoughby is kind of better than expected but still uninspiring. Tetley (at least it’s Cask), Bombardier and the dreaded Greene King IPA. We try the Bombardier and amazingly, for a beer that I have never rated, it is pretty good. Perhaps though, my taste buds are deceiving me, so I have another to make sure. Is this good race prep or not?

Home for more race prep, this time - pasta, mince, and stilton. Preparing for a race can be really good fun.

An early-ish night but I’m not terribly tired. Despite that I'm told no sex, I have to save my energy. Damn, there seems to be a down side to race prep after all.