15,000 women - all in bras

Becky is doing the Moonwalk this Saturday night. This is a 26 mile walk (taking about 7 1/2 hours) both starting and finishing in Hyde Park. The start is at midnight! She's asked me again to thank everyone for sponsoring her. Very impressive, I'd far rather run for an hour than walk for seven.

And she's doing it in her bra which is I believe the norm for these sort of escapades.

All going well on the training front for my 10k (in UNDER a month). I followed the Friday 4 mile plod with a Monday 4 mile much faster plod. I was immensely pleased with this and took the opportunity to book myself into another run - an 8.2 mile run in Kingston in October. I hear Jamaica's lovely that time of year. Boom, boom. I felt I needed to book another run so that I had some motivation after I'd finished the 10k.

Thursday was indoor footy - very good - felt full of energy.

Due to either myself or Becky being out a lot at the moment there are limited evenings I can get out onto the 'open road'. Because of this I decided to revisit the treadmill at work. On Friday evening I programmed in 10k/hour with an incline of 3.0 (3.0 what? Percent? Hamsters? Who knows) and off I went. Very strange experience and somewhat artificial. No kerbs or dips in the pavement, no landmarks against which to measure your route. The only exciting thing was the screeching noise the machine went as I strayed away from the middle of the 'tread' and onto the 'mill'. Didn't fall off it - I'll leave those sort of shenanigans to young Geoffrey. I had to put my towel over the display and only let myself look at it every 4 songs (the display, not the towel) otherwise you look at the time which says 1 min 24 secs and the next time you look it says 2 min 10 secs etc. etc.

I know a few people who use treadmills. Mark so that he can kill 2 birds at the same time and watch the footy. Chrissy because "And of course living where I live (it's hilly in Wales y'know) it would be pretty near impossible to find a 5 or 10k course round here that does not have a crippling gradient to navigate, so best stick to the treadmill induced euphoria". Fair point but it's definitely second best for me. Give me the South Circular any day of the week.

Last Sunday was a slow 4 miles (I've measured 5 on that swanky new website I told you about last time and will definitely do it in the next couple of weeks) mainly due to the fact that I didn't set out until gone 9.30 for many reasons - most of them child-related. When I say fast and slow, there's a 2 minute difference between them ranging from about 38 mins to about 40 which is dangerously close to my 10k hour target.

Today, Wednesday, was another treadmill session at work. A fairly tough but immensely enjoyable 40 minutes. Getting the hang of the tedium and only letting myself look at the counter every 5 songs. Seems to work quite well. Next run will probably be Sunday night although I may do a treadmill session on Friday if I'm not aching too much from Thursday night footy.

Steve Vaught - www.fatmanwalking.com - has finished. See website for details. Impressive.

Just time to quickly repeat 3 very basic things to help very new runners (I've moved up from very new to just new now)
1 - Sort your breathing out. The more efficient the better and don't forget the pursed lips to greatly reduce the risk of stitches.
2 - Lean slightly forward when running. Helps with the momentum I find.
3 - Punching with clenched fists when running. Also helps although not entirely sure why.

Once again, best wishes to Becky and Sarah on the Moonwalk this weekend.