It’s the same for running. I have great plans for the week. Plans are easy to make. Charts are easy to draw up. They are a lot harder to achieve. It is so easy to collapse all the plans, to talk yourself out of running or swimming or going to the gym. Actually it’s fascinating to actually experience my brain telling myself that really it is too hot/too cold/too snowy – ANYTHING to stop me actually going running. Procrastination is a very strong force.

This is why the hardest thing about running is putting your shoes on.

Perhaps this is why (I think) the whole running thing has taken off. People like inventing hurdles for themselves. 5K parkruns. 10K races.  Half marathons, Marathons, impossible races which must be trained properly for otherwise they cannot be completed.

This is why last night I went online and entered the Finchley20, a gruelling (in my book)  experience around the suburban streets of Hillingdon which is done by about 200 people in singlets. Do I want to do the Finchley20. No way! I’m terrified of the Finchley20. But if I do it, (and complete it), I will be so delighted with myself, because it will represent a challenge which I have found daunting, and have overcome.  It’s not the Iron Man or the Marathon des Sables or swimming the Channel, but to me it is tough, and therefore significant.

In fact we had SUCH a lovely time we missed the Eurostar back to London by a whopping TWO HOURS. I managed to read the Arrival time as our Departure time, and thus when we turned up at the Gare du Nord it was long, long gone.

“This is a bit of a problem, Mummy,” observed Lucien. I’ll say. OMG. How to get back from Paris when you really need to, with no tickets for anything? This was not a moment to think of my bank manager. Air? Very expensive and no guarantees. Coach? Cheap but arrived at 0700 the next morning. In the end I took a Zen-like view of the situation and bought wildly expensive tickets on the Eurostar where we were alongside Jarvis Cocker.

“I like travelling First Class” said my daughter as I brought myself round from a coma induced by the eye watering price,  with a nifty glass of bubble. Don’t make a habit of it, sweetie. And ALWAYS, always check the times on the tickets.

I blame it on the magic of the City of Light.

Talking of which….here are some pics of the Great Wall of China Marathon, taken by Julie Sparrow, who has done it and lived to tell the tale. Actually she’s going to be giving me a masterclass. This picture is showing the steep route and also the fact we will be running in something of a wilderness…yes this is what we will be going up after 20 miles.. .not quite the centre of London, is it…well, its a challenge! Roll on May 19th!

Great Wall of China Marathon

Great Wall at 20 miles of running

They are Nike LunarGlide2 and I bought them almost on a whim, having run for years in Nike Air Zooms. The Air Zooms made my feet ache for about 10 minutes after 4 miles – I thought that was just my feet but when I moved onto LunarGlides! Wow! No ache. Ever. Ever. No blisters. Nothing. Just amazing running shoes.

So this week I went on a search for NEW LunarGlides. It was quite hard. Because Nike, in its wisdom, has now brought out the LunarGlide3. What does one do? Should you progress, like Nike, onto the next number? Should you stay with what makes you happy? I went to Runner’s Need and couldn’t decide, so came out with these (see picture below), which will help me next week in Watford’s hilly terrain. Then I continued on my search for LunarGlides.

Socks and gels

Sport Direct was totally rubbish, although good value, with hopeless staff who really were completely off the pace. So in the end I went direct to Nike and have bought a pair of LunarGlide3 online. Bright blue. I think you can buy running shoes online if you absolutely know your size and style that you want. You can do the old wedding dress trick, and try on the ideal in the shop, only to replicate at your leisure at home. But frankly if you are a runner like I am, hopelessly loyal to one brand, I don’t think you can go wrong. And remember to change them after 500 miles!

The other thing I will definitely be wearing next weekend at Watford will be these; I’m all prepared for the snow!

My lovely running gloves

During the ensuing four months we were frozen, bitten alive by ants, parched, penniless, homeless, frustrated and exhausted. But it was a glorious adventure. Complete with maps and candid diaries from the children, Bonnes Vacances is the lowdown on what really happens when you try to get the family to live out your dream. People find it quite funny. Some people tell me it made them laugh out loud. One person told me it made him cry. It makes French people very cross. Buy Bonnes Vacances

Why did this happen, and who fuelled the UK’s love affair with the Young British Artists? With interviews from Tracey Emin, Nick Serota and Jay Jopling, and an awful lot of bohemian actuality, this book takes you back to the heady days when Madonna presented the Turner Prize and Tony Blair was desperate to get to the Tate Modern opening bash. Buy The Tastemakers

And we are talking about the romance of travel, of being met, of seeing the love of your life at the Arrivals gate and enfolding yourself in his/her arms for a VERY LONG TIME. And Simon Calder won’t have any of it. Airports for him, the Indy’s Travel Guru, are dull, horrid places with strip lighting and too many walkways. But for me, Jezza and Tony, they are places of high drama, of theatre, of human emotion and of course of travel.

Here is a picture of Jeremy, who is adorable and was off to Chicago the next day to do a piece for Russian television, and then the day AFTER that, Uganda. How can Simon say that air travel isn’t magical? When you can be in Manchester, Chicago and Uganda within the space of three days. It was a good show.

One carried the base, the other the Trophy. They placed the Trophy on the base. I asked if I could take a photo of it. “Not until the ribbons are attached”, said Security Guard #1. The ribbons (black, white, red) were affixed to the Trophy. In that order. Can I take a photo now? “Not from the back,” said Security Guard #2. I went to the front. The Deputy Editor of the Express took the photo you see here. What you can’t see are the two Security Guards sitting on either side of the Trophy. Their job is to escort it wherever it goes. How long have they been doing this job? Four Years. They go all around the world with it. With that in our minds, Michael and I went off and reviewed the papers.