Alan Murchison's blog by Alan_Murchison

Hi realbuzzers, I'm sorry I've been off the radar, but work has been very busy and I've been taking advantage of the amazing weather to get in some serious miles on the bike. I had the pleasure of cooking again at the UK's premier food festival in Ludlow, a must visit event if you are passionate about quality food and artisan producers. Will Holland my Head Chef at La Becasse did a great job of pulling together some amazing chefs to demonstrate their culinary skills to the 20,000 visitors over the weekend. Organising chefs is like herding cats! So well done to Will for a sterling effort.

I had been advised to start doing a lot of walking to help me get fit before hopefully running again, and this was great news for my latest training partner, Teeko my husky pup! He's the latest addition to the household and is a pure bred running machine (like my other training partner Louise Damen! She will appreciate the comparisons - not) and he will soon be joining me on my twice daily runs, because huskies are natural endurance animals (again like Louise, sorry) and he should be quite happy with my paltry 80/90 miles a week! Roll on the snow!

Now my Olympic event this week will involve my new latest hobby, which is walking. I am doing 2 hours a day at the moment and thought I was pretty fit for walking, as I have been out lots lately and walking, I like to think, fairly briskly. At Beijing in the 20k Walk, it was fiercely contested race, with the Russian Valeriy Borchin winning in a mind boggling 1.19! That ain't walking that's 40 min 10k running funnily! Now I know the referees play a huge part in the outcome of these races and can 'red card' you at any time for infringements of the rules, but you CANNOT walk at sub 7 minute mile pace, it's impossible! You just end up running badly and that's a fact.

I went out with my husky pup and tried my best to walk 10k at 7 minute miles and this is quite simply a ridiculous sport. I can run it easily and walk at 4mph but any quicker and you end up running ?!? Don't get it at all, I really am sorry. I love all sport done at elite level, but this is a nonsense ! Next week I join the damo 'groin club'.