It's looking grim out there

Whoever thought that running a nine mile cross-country race two days before the trip of a lifetime was a good idea? Clearly us.... So, Sunday saw us heading for the army vehicle testing track in Aldershot to undertake the aptly titled Grim Challenge. Fortunately it also gave us the chance to meet up with Cath's family and some Audit Commission friends who were also running.

Our trademark impeccable timing meant we had leaving drinks with friends scheduled for the night before, the plan being a couple of relaxing beers and an early night. At some point during the evening that plan was quietly jettisoned, so our preparation for the run from hell involved a gallon of wine each and crawling to bed at 2am, a technique mentioned in very few running textbooks. A bleary-eyed, early morning drive around the south-east's exciting motorway network later, and we were lined up with 1800 other hardy souls, whose idea of the perfect way to spend the Sabbath was to plough through knee-deep water and mud for nine miles, with the tempting carrot of a t-shirt and a sachet of some indigestible isotonic drink powder as a reward. PG Wodehouse once described a particularly crushing hangover as like having a Frenchman living inside his head, and our Gallic cousins were in boisterous, irrepressible form on the starting line. However, a blistering run from the Ryder duo saw them come home in 1hr:21mins, enough to secure a coveted place in the top 700 and an unseemly display of flesh whilst changing out of sodden, mud-caked clothes in the car park afterwards.

It is now 24 hours till we leave for Rio, and we have moved into full packing mode. The cat has buried himself in the pants strewn out across the bed ready to be crammed in to an already over-flowing rucksack, and is in danger of finding himself unexpectedly at 37,000 feet and minus 50 degrees. Julian's outfit for the nearest mainland point to the Antarctic winter appears to consist of sandals, a floppy hat and a pac-a-mac, though the latter might just come into its own in Rio de Janeiro.

We have both had fairly drastic holiday haircuts; one of us now looks like Noel Fielding and the other like an escaped convict. We will let you decide which is which. We have said our tearful goodbyes to most friends and family and we are in the process of handing over care of our cat and house to a very safe pair of hands.

So, this will be our last UK entry, expect the posts to get more sporadic but hopefully more interesting from here on in.