I'm tired of checking all my gear again and again, now I just want to get over there and do it. I'm as prepared as I'm going to be, which isn't saying much, and I'm as fit as I'm going to be, which is saying even less.

Have been passing some time just trying to trim the weight down as much as I can - my dried apricots are history, and my pillow (which I know, I know, a real man should never have had there in the first place) has gone the same way. Will be just under 8.5kg (plus water).

In anticipation of some uncomfortable nights I bought some non-prescription sleeping pills which have turned out to be completely useless. I think I fall asleep faster when I don’t take them.

Am a little concerned that my knabber nossi sausage sticks are too long to fit in the snack pouch on my belt. I tried googling for a solution, but to no avail – surely I’m not the first person to consider this serious issue?

Coming just after the sausage stick dilemma on my “important issues” list were the strained ankle ligaments I sustained since my last blog which put a sudden and calamitous stop to any training at all for me for 3 weeks. But not to worry - have put in 2 pretty good weeks since then, so although I’ve revised my expectations (downwards), I’m good to go.

It's Showtime. Let's do it.

She was a very nasty piece of work.

I have big news once again this month. Huge news. News that has made me re-examine everything I thought I knew about nutrition. Expedition Foods' "Custard With Apple" is really  delicious! It's so delicious that instead of having two dinners each night, now I'm just going to have one dinner, followed by a Custard With Apple.  And I might even have Custard with Apple for breakfast. And here's the really weird thing  - Custard with Apple has more calories than the dinner!

I have to say I do love my pack. It's an Inov-8 Race Elite 25, and whilst I thought it looked a bit flimsy at first, I've done two runs this week with a 5 litre water bottle and a 3kg bag of rice in it, and it's great. Strong enough, very comfortable, doesn't bounce around. Just love it.

Last week was my week for a full dress rehearsal. I got everything - sleeping bag, sleeping pad, food, snacks, equipment, spare clothes etc etc, and laid it all out on the lounge floor. My favourite program - Man v Wild - just happened to be on, and I tried multitasking, but multitasking isn't as easy as it sounds, so I sat down with my mouth open and gave my full attention to Bear Grylls who was eating these little frog things in Ecuador. But that doesn't matter, back to my kit. The first thing that became very obvious is that there was no way it was all going to fit in my pack. I took out a few non-essentials, and it still wasn't going to fit. It was time for some tough decisions. The sort of decisions even Bear would struggle with. "Do I really need my swimsuit?" "Do I really need all those Custards with Apple?"

Another strange thing happened with my dress rehearsal. I tallied each individual item and it added up to 10.4kg. And I can live with that. But when it was all together, it actually weighed 11.2kg?!?! Impossible.

Or is it? Perhaps the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts (Aristotle, 330BC). To be honest I always thought Aristotle was a bit shallow, but I see now that there might be more to him than meets the eye.

By the end of the night, I had in fact worked out that the weights which are written on packaging often do not (ironically) include the packaging itself, so the mystery was solved.

A bit of a commotion going on right now in our kitchen - Christine (wife) very upset that she can't find a 3kg bag of rice she says she bought last week.

...

Oh shit!

It could be argued that my wife got the short end of the stick with presents this year, but in fairness her new slippers really are extremely comfortable. And to make her feel better, I took some good footage of her walking in them with the video function on my new iPhone4.

Now, the subject at hand - food for Atacama.

One of the big lessons I learnt doing the Gobi was that with freeze dried food, the description on the packet has absolutely nothing to do with the contents of the packet.

The description of my dinner on the 1st day was (and this is word for word what it said), “tender chicken slices, vegetables and stuffing smothered in gravy and served with mashed potato”. The dinner in actual fact looked and tasted like some sort of muesli gone wrong.

Breakfast on the 2^nd day was described as “bacon, scrambled eggs, and beans in tomato sauce with hash brown potatoes”, which I can only assume reflects a tremendous sense of humour on the part of whoever wrote that.

So the moral of the story for me was to try everything first. I’ve been trying out quite a lot of freeze dried dinners over the last few months, and whilst I think Expedition Foods might come out best for calorie/weight ratio, Mountain House wins hands down for taste. I have actually only found three that I really like, so will be having (for two nights each) Mountain House Beef Stroganoff, Mountain House Beef Stew, and Expedition Foods Spaghetti Bolognese. All three delicious.

For breakfast no more freeze dried stuff at all, it will just be a single sachet of oatmeal.

But then I will take a bigger range of stuff this time to snack on while I’m walking ... um ... I mean “running”. I quite like the knabber nossi sausages which you can get on the RTP store, plus maybe one Clif bar, one bag of nuts or crisps, and one packet of dried mango/apricots each day. I definitely want a variety of stuff because I relied a bit too much on Clif bars last time, and I was getting a bit sick of them by the third day.

Then 3 salt caps and 4 Nuun electrolyte tabs (mixed with my water) each day, and I’m set.

There was just a slight delay finishing this. The camera on the iPhone 4 has a surprisingly powerful flash, and I was temporarily incapacitated when I took a photo of myself.

With the Shanghai winter being cold this year, I reluctantly bought a pair of tights. I know this whole compression business is supposed to be beneficial, but having read the various viewpoints, and having giving the matter great thought, on balance I don’t think I’ll wear them because the simple fact is they make my legs look skinny.

Since the marathon I’ve done a few 10km runs and one stairwell session, but I really need to get going with the long stuff if I'm going to win this race.

Part 1

Part 1 was up to and including the Shanghai marathon last weekend. Upon starting the program I quite fancied my chances of completing a marathon in 3 hours. My first “longish” run quickly put paid to that idea, and I revised my goal to 3 and a half hours. A further week into the program saw it put back to 4 hours. Then 4 and a half hours. Finally, my goal was to just finish it. Which I did, and it was quite enjoyable, despite the slight annoyance of being followed so closely by the truck collecting all the race markers. Especially when it started tooting at me. 5:02 was my official time. Hmmmm.

Part 2

I wanted to write this the day after the marathon, but I couldn’t quite reach my computer from bed. A few days have passed now, so have made it to my office. I can’t believe the taxi driver wanted to be paid extra for carrying me up the steps.

Anyway, having knocked off Part 1, next week I will start Part 2! This will entail putting the pack on (with 10kg) and doing some longish run/walk/run/walk sessions. The idea is to do two consecutive such sessions (eg Mon & Tue) each week as well as an additional two runs each week (eg Thu & Sat) – either intervals or stairs. So 4 workouts per week. The walk/run/walk/run sessions will start off at about 15km each and build up to 25km each. The interval/stair workouts might be 45 minutes or so each. A brilliant plan that is sure to bring me victory in Atacama.

I quite like doing intervals, because despite my age I can still turn on the gas when needed, and it is with no small measure of satisfaction that I can still beat my athletic daughter over 100 metres. Admittedly she’s only 7 years old, but that’s not the point, a win is a win.

This week I also received my latest order from the Racing the Planet Store – meals, snacks, and a teeny weeny toothbrush that looks quite cute. I order something every month from the RTP store. Even if I don’t really need anything, I order anyway just for the thrill of unwrapping it when it arrives.

Next month – food and energy supplements to fuel a champion!