Alan Murchison's blog by Alan_Murchison

Hello all. Bit of a foody week this week. First of all I had a pretty special lunch at Harrods at The French Laundry restaurant. Thomas Keller, who has two 3* Michelin restaurants was cooking in London for 10 days. It is a very difficult and expensive place to get a reservation, but needless to say we had a pretty amazing lunch. However it was eye-wateringly expensive, £250 per person without wine! So glad I don't drink! It was a great experience even though I will be eating dry bread for a fortnight to pay for it.

We have also had the launch of the Michelin Guide for 2012 and L'ortolan has retained its star for the 10th year in succession; good work by all the team, keep on pushing. I am also pleased to announce that I am now back in proper training again. It's been 4 weeks of steady running doing 50 miles a week now and it's feeling very easy. So things are now falling into place. 3 weeks and counting until my first race of the cross country season, so I need to start to inject some pace. I do love running.

Now this time on my Olympic quest I have been doing a spot of sailing on the Dart Estuary. Now I have a restaurant in Dartmouth called Angelique, however I am not a great lover of boats. So jumping on board some little yachty type thing is my worst nightmare. I spent just under 2 hours at sea and was either being sick or thinking about it for the whole time. Quite frankly falling in the water would have been a relief from the rocking and tipping motion. So it is a little difficult for me to comment on the skill and prowess involved, as I could hardly stand up afterwards!

I am sure good sailors are very skilled, but I just couldn't appreciate anything other than dry and solid land. Even at the best of times The Dart can be difficult to gauge; it's either very calm or can get a little choppy! In 2012 the sailing events will be held in Weymouth which is just around the corner (that's a nautical term!?) from Dartmouth and should be a great venue. It will also be brilliant for tourism and the area in general. Britain has a fantastic record on the water at the Olympics and this time around we are bound to gather a haul of medals. But it is safe to say I won't be venturing near a boat again for a while as I was quite unwell. This rather unpleasant sport I definitely prefer to watch on TV!