So a plan of checking out ski clothes ended up being a day spent around town eating, enjoying the sun, some checking out of ski clothes and then watching other people run their guts out.

The eats. Good dim sum is hard to come by in London it seems. Laureate is an old standby that I like to go to for their consistently good quality food, generally good service and pretty much fair price. And not to make an undiverse comment or anything but its always a good sign to walk into a Chinese restaurant to find it is filled with Chinese diners. I think Sandra was a bit surprised to find that when we walked in at just before 12 today she was the only white person in there. Again not to be undiverse but its fact!

Laureate offers a good diverse selection of dim sum so there is something for everyone. In an unusual move, unusual because normally I am so stuffed with eating our mains I have no room, we went for two dessert dishes. A yam and tapioca dish (which you can see Sandra enjoying to the right) and a mango puds dish. Both of these are pictured to the left. Both were actually pretty tasty dishes and though Sandra did seem to enjoy them both she somehow convinced herself in the middle of eating it that she didn’t like the yam and tapioca dish after all. We still aren’t sure how she did that. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that “[her] mum makes the best tapioca dessert in the whole world.”

The shopping. After stuffing ourselves slightly at dim sum we headed off to a couple of ski shops in Covent Garden. Now, unless you’re a serious skiier that will definitely be hitting the slopes all season long it doesn’t seem reasonable to spend a kazillion dollars on buying ski gear that you will wear for 5 days only. Yes you may try to convince yourselve that you will wear it “the next time” you go skiing .. but seriously when that time comes around again I’m sure you’ll be wanting the latest season gear anyway! We started off at the Mountain Warehouse which was a discount store that Sandra found online. Its not top of the line gear but it’ll get you through a ski holiday and the prices are fairly reasonable. I was most impressed with one of the shop assistants who, rather than bully us into buying expensive items we didn’t need, gave very good advice on what to look for in ski gear and actually told us to come back in a few weeks time when more ski gear would be coming in. We did try on some ski pants and jackets for sizing and you can see Sandra to the right in a dead sexy pair of ski trousers. Yowzer!

It turned out that going to the Mountain Warehouse first was a bit of a mistake as when we went up the road to the North Face and Ellis Brigham the prices in there seemed utterly ridiculous instead of just being a touch on the expensive side. Didn’t stop us trying on some really cute ski jackets and caps but we were definitely not going to be sourcing any of our ski gear from either of those shops unless they have a giant fire sale dropping prices by at least 60%! Well, that’s how I felt anyway.

Looking cute in our ski jackets was hot and hard work 🙂 so next on the agenda was a drinks break. Why is it when you want a shop to get a nice icy fruit shake or milkshake you can never think of a good one to go to? So, sadly (ha ha) we ended up at Ben & Jerry’s in Leicester Square. A milkshake was just the ticket. It seemed a bit strange to mix two potentially obscure flavours but somehow it worked. We took our shakes down to Trafalgar Square to enjoy what was turning out to be a fabulous day. The sky was so blue and I even had time for a bit of cloud gazing spotting a horse in the clouds. Or something horse-like. Or not. You may have to use some imagination.

You must surely be wondering by now where we get to the watching people run their guts out stage? Okay maybe not but here it is anyway. We walked from Trafalgar Square through crazy Piccadilly Circus up Regent Street to Nike Town and found that they were having a Nike Festival of Air. It sounds much more dramatic than it actually is and its all about promoting a new range of Nike Air shoes. Part of the Festival is to “Run on Air”. Basically, they have these three treadmills set up and the challenge is to run for as long as you can at the average pace that Paula Radcliffe runs a marathon. This average pace ladies and gentlemen is a “slow” 11.6 miles an hour. I joke you not. Holey dooley! I can’t even run at 11.6 kilometres an hour let alone do it over 26 miles! The longest time every day wins a pair of the new shoes and the longest time at the end of the festival (Thur, 28th Sep) gets a one-on-one training session with Paula Radcliffe. Not a prize to be scoffed at.

So, anyway, we watched a few people try it most of them averaging about 1-2 minutes at that pace and some finding it so fast they literally flew off the back of the treadmill. Okay – that was just one guy but still. You can see in the pic to the above right the guy in the middle is already struggling and they are only 3 seconds into the run! He lasted maybe another 20 seconds and the other two didn’t last much longer – I think the girl went over just a minute and the guy on the left maybe two minutes. When you see how fast their legs were going you realise just how fast Paula runs in a marathon. Hurts just thinking about it.

And then along came Mr Marathon. Otherwise known as Ryan McKinlay. Now this is one guy intent on winning the grand prize. According to the Nike Air Festival website before today’s performance he had already clocked 25 mins 30 seconds and 32 mins and 31 seconds in at least two previous attempts. (He may have had more attempts but they are the ones currently in the top 5.) So, before Mr Marathon started his run today some other guy, Chris Kantos, held the record at 35 mins and 31 seconds.

Mr Marathon proved he was up to the challenge and more. The pic to the left is him at 28 minutes. Still looking really easy, still relaxed, giant strides, and close to the front of the treadmill. I was getting tired just watching him. Another 22 minutes (!) later we thought it was all over at 50 mins. Seemed he had something to prove though as he pushed himself that little bit further. Record: 51 mins and 3 seconds. That is going to take some beating. If you’re keen to try – you have until Thursday to do so!