7 days

This time next week we (god willing) will have finished our first marathon. Both of us are reasonably healthy and will take the start line....

I have taken the drinking is better approach for training and as such i am in great beer drinking form and my running form is coming a distant second. Kat, apart from shin splints for a couple of weeks is in good form and should kick my a$$. Here are my predictions...

Kat - 3.23
Ben 3.47

You heard it here first.

Hey Mumbai

Late August i packed my bag and left for the airport to jet for Mumbai for week. Consequence of doing some work for a customer with outsource operations in India. 9 hours after leaving Heathrow i flew over the slums 20 meters from the airport fence.

Once you have seen one third world city... you know what to expect and it was no different, although things are a bit more extreme with kids running in front of cars ,
The digs were brilliant although overlooking the slums from hotel window puts things into perspective. Most of the week was work but we managed to get out into the city for half and day and even went out for a local meal... and it is true curry is better in India!!!!!

as usual can't be arsed writing a novel so here are the highlights:

1) Didn't get sick once which is lucky as i winged it and didn't get any injections
2) the food - one curry had 126 different spices .... and i can not speak highly enough of Tandoori chicken .....
3) Cows... being holey and all they do what they want and they do.... including walking / sleeping all over the highway
4) Indian Gucci - everything is ripped off including my Gucci bag that lasted less than a week
5) cheap as chips - £10 is like 900 rupees
6) Coming back they closed the runway 45 Min's early while we while sitting in the plane - the pilot had to fight hard ball to get them to get off the runway so we could take off.. annoying and amusing all the same
7) India people are top shelf... real friendly and they could teach UK folk a few lessons... call centre customer service is another issue tho..........
8) folk live whereever than can..... including on highways in busstops, on the beach. Rent in Mumbai is more expensive than downtown New York.....

Photos can be found at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=21713&l=63488&id=547246954

Grand, Happy Times, Phenomenal

Portugal can be described as all of the above and was by the six of us whom left the dire summer of Dublin (Mel, Niall, Emma, Tim) and London (Kat and I) and headed to Quarteira, 20 kms outside Faro on the southwest coast of Portugal. Six days of 30 degrees blue sky and beach... No tourist traps this time, just good old fashioned lying in the sun, moving only to get food and drink. Rather than bore you with the how good the beach and swimming in the sea was every day we have pulled out the highlights:

1. The food - being on the coast it was fantastic to be able to eat proper fresh seafood again. One of the meals was monk fish and prawns (the biggest prawns i have eaten ever) it was truly Phenomenal. We also managed whole fish inclusive of head (yummm) and fish and chips on the beach...

2. The booze- chip as chips, we had a couple of good nights out and about. The Sunday we ended up in Villamoura - the town next to Quarteria. There are jaded memorys of rediculously overpriced Pimms and Lemonade, huge shots ot Tequilla a mexican bar at 3am and the Casino that we entered but did not play (that's a 1st). Other booze highlights included the 'Drunken Drunk' cocktail (Niall's idea) that tasted more like Paint thinner and a fantastic beer called Super Bock , that was served in 700ml pints....

3. The Grass Umbrella and deck chairs... not necessary but absolutely mint to capture some

shade and get off the sand for quality reading.

4. Beach Tennis - A game Tim and myself invented - probably the best game in the world but too hard to explain, happy to explain over a beer.

5. IceCream - a must in 30 degrees but the best part was the self service bit where you get what you want then they weigh it! - Well done to Tim who took out first place with a £6.50 icecream...

6. The Vibe - We both agree this was a holiday to relax and the local cutlure was awesome, flying back into london and dealing with the tube was awful.

7. A darker shade of white - I am perhaps the darkest white i have ever been, i also managed to avoid major sunburning , Kat is African American and can not possibly get any browner

8. Running - There is nothing quite like running down a beach to start each day and excluding one badly hungover day this is what we did - super amazing and hard

9. Bacon - At the buffet breakfast was A+, gutted when they served tiny little sausages one day instead

10. Catching up with friends - It was great to see the folk from Dublin and everybody was on good form - good times

Training Update

8 weeks to go.... yep 8 weeks till we run 42.2 km in Budapest. So far so so average, in fact i am concerned about it, Kat not so much she can run and run, me i gotta work for it. I'm struggling with the weekday running as i'm away for work etc but Kat runs to and from work so does a fair no. of k's during the week.

We knocked off a 2 hour 35 run in Jersey and managed a 2 hour 45 min run today so we are not too far away from being able to 'finish' but gone are the goal times and prospects of finishing in 3.15 , anything under 4 would be gold. however just getting over the finish line will be reward enough.

On a brighter note my work pants are loose again and my belt is no longer at risk of going to the next notch, which is a surprise considering the amount of beer / whiskey and wine i have consumed while away.

Toast

The annual Festival that is Toast NZ, a summer wine and food festival took place last week. After the week of flooding, thunder and lighting that was very very frightening we held our breath that the day would break fine... and it did (well for a while).

We had Tim and Emma over from Dublin to stay in the Studio la Paddington (cosy is a word that springs to mind) and we were up bright and early for the Rugby to watch the abs wallop oz (its not prem season after all) and then headed to Fulham Palace to enjoy NZ beer/wine, food, music and friends.

To be honest the set up was fairly avg.. we ended up eating Thai food ... at least the monteiths summer was flowing. God was obviously not in a great mood and the heavens unleashed at about 1pm for an hour as the Black seeds were playing.. foresight meant there were 1000s of ponchos to give out and our trusty umbrella kept us semi dry. We ended up finishing the day with more beer and very very avg pub food - good times.