London Expo

Bright lights and the big city! I travelled up to Windsor on Tuesday to stay over at Nick's (Mr Lucozade) but typically the trains had a problem and I got stuck in Reading as they cancelled all trains there due to some gas fault, even though Nick was very tired due to a long trip back from south of France (that's another long story) he got out of bed to come and pick me up. For a guy who makes a living talking about nutrition he had nothing in the house to eat either at dinner or for breakfast! So he took me out for dinner Tuesday night and then I got something on the way in the morning. It is always nice in Windsor and we managed to catch the football in a local pub and then shared his massive bed while listening to some band I have never heard of while he went through his work load of the up coming week which is more exciting than most.... 'Talk with Gary Speed' type of work, I think he even ended up pacing Gary Speed some of the way in the marathon as part of Lucozade helping him.

In the morning we met up with the rest of the Lucozade team as we made our way to the Expo where the Saucony team were waiting, I parted ways with Nick as I met up with some of the Saucony team I had never met before. Ash Harrell, also sponsored by Saucony was doing the 4 days with me and we were doing a sort of double role of handing out flyers but also selling if it got busy or others had to leave to collect more product etc,. It was not long before people were coming in and we were up and running, the next 4 days in the Expo seemed to merge into one long day as we arrived at 9.30am and left around 8pm.

It was good fun and I knew a few people scattered around the place, Mark Miles and Olly Laws were over at the Asics stand, Steve Davies and Chris Moss at the Mizuno stand, Andy Norman over at Sweatshop, and a few other reps who I know from the shop I work at, not to mention the Lucozade team and then getting to know a few from the Timex stand during the week who had a great Lance Armstrong look-alike! It was a bit like working in a shop but a lot more people, you got the same weird people asking silly questions along with really nice people who you could have a joke with, and I did get a bit of stick for handing out more flyers and serving about 90% women!

I got on really well with a couple of the guys at the team including Paul who used to work on the West End, Pete who was my room mate and really nice guy, and Ash who although I got the impression he didn't like me to start seemed to get my sense of humour by the end (hopefully).

I ran each morning but there was time at night especially as the best part of the day was going to really nice places to eat with 'Browns' in Canary Wharf being a highlight where I enjoyed a great steak! I was also known to have a few Malibu's after dinner which some of the northern members of the team found a big 'gay'! It was a really tiring trip but really good fun during the day and we seemed to have a really relaxed atmosphere within the team unlike some around, which made it that little bit easier.

I came back with Steve Davies and Chris Moss who dropped me off in Cardiff which saved me a lot of hassle with trains and tubes so I actually watched the marathon at home where it was great to see Ben Moreau coming home in 11^th place with his Vizi Pro trainers on.

Other finishers, it was really good to see Lemoncello make his debut in 8^th place and other guys like Dave Norman going under 2:20, just a bit sad Wicksy couldn't be there as I am sure he would have had a cracker! O well always more races.

simx