Only four months left to the start in Greece. We’ve all been to see Dr Damian Coleman at Canterbury Christ Church University to be put through the torture mill of his measuring machines. We sat on a fixed bike as he ramped up the power every 8 minutes, taking blood samples, and measuring our oxygen use. As a result we have all got a different training programme. All our training is now based not on time, speed or distance, but on the heart rate at which the exercise is done.

Yup, most of us need to lose some weight. So we have one fairly low heart rate for burning off fat. Then there’s a heart rate for steady pressure to keep going all day. In my case that’s 130-140 beats per minute. And then there’s a rate where you push yourself until your eyeballs pop, have a rest, and then go again. This is supposed to increase our oxygen efficiency.

Damian is going to measure us all before we go, and afterwards, when we get back. He wants to  see what effect such extreme exercise is going to have on our bodies. He predicts damage!

We launched our appeal a freezing afternoon at Canterbury Cathedral. Jamie from the Air Ambulance Trust came over from Marden and made us all pose. Thank goodness it will be warmer in July.

This morning we welcomed Lord Bates, former MP, to Canterbury Cathedral. He set off from Olympia on Good Friday last year and has walked the whole route on his own. His great idea is that the Olympics in classical times were a time of truce when there was to be no war. At the time of every Olympic Games since Baron Coubertin restarted the event at the end of the nineteenth century world leaders have agreed a truce. It has never happened. So this year he decided to walk the route across Europe through all its war torn past to plead that this year there really will be a truce. You can read about his amazing journey at http://www.walkfortruce.org/ .