I just read that there will be a solar eclipse (annular) across western Europe and N. Africa on Oct 3 2005. Details
here. How cool is that!?! I didn't see any mention of this in bulletin 3. We'll have to throw our compasses at the sun to drive away the evil spirits.
In Rome we should get something like 75% of totality, with max eclipse at 9:15 UT (10:15 local I think, which is smack in the middle of the Middle distance qualifier races). This will be noticably darker than normal for that time of day, although not particularly *dark*, per-se. Animals may act funny. One cool effect will be from the tree leaves. They will cast
crescent-shaped shadows. I wonder if this will be distracting on course? Looks like there will be a live webcast of the eclipse from various places - available on that
NASA eclipse website.