Sally Gunnell's blog by Sally_Gunnell

I’m home! My holiday turned out to be a great deal of fun. It was actually a sort of working break; I was shooting some commercial TV footage for Royal Caribbean Cruises on board one of their fantastic ships (you’ll catch it on ITV’s Daybreak in the next couple of weeks). The family came along and to be totally honest with you, at the eleventh hour, I wasn’t that sure it was going to be a good idea. How wrong I was. Okay, so there were 4,500 other people on the ship as we left Barcelona, but I was surprised at how easy it was to find a quietish spot on board. The big plus was the number of activities for the kids; they made tons of friends and spent their time surfing, rock climbing and ice skating.

The freedom was great for them. That meant Jon and I had some time to ourselves, which we thoroughly enjoyed. The on-board gym was out of this world, so I was able to work off the food and drink that was lavished upon all the guests by the wonderful crew! There was even a running track winding its way round one of the decks, so I had no excuses in keeping in shape for the Monster Challenge. We cruised around southern France and the West Coast of Italy, which I have to say was spectacular. So, if you have to work for a living, there are worse ways of doing it! The kids came home saying that this was their best ever holiday, so me working clearly wasn’t a problem for them!

Since getting home I was glued to the box, watching the World Athletics Championships from Korea. One the face of it, some might say it’s been disappointing, with Jess Ennis, Phillips Idowu and Mo Farah (10,000) missing out on golds. But Mo bounced back in the 5,000m and I reckon it might be a blessing in disguise for them. London is less than a year away. They now have a clear idea of what they need to work on and they’ve got the time and resources to get down to some hard winter graft. It could just be the making of them.

Next up is the Monster Challenge. I came home to find my teammates looking very fit and strong, so I hope I’m not going to be the weak link! There’s not enough time left for me to do anything meaningful by way of training, so I hope my early summer success on the South Downs Way will see me through. Either way, you guys will hear about it in my next blog. Wish me luck and see you there if you’re competing too!