SO HERE I am just a week away from my first marathon challenge of 2010 and Paris finally beckons.

Frankly, I’m a bit bored now. The long training runs are done (if you don’t count the final, very long practice session I’m doing for the London Marathon i.e. Paris!) Now it’s just a matter of three short 30-40 minute runs this week and I am done. J’ai fini.

Which leaves one small problem – what to write about this week. Fortunately for me, my moment of writer’s block was short-lived after I caught up with news of a friend’s son, Ollie, who is currently on his gap year travels with a friend.

Kicking off their adventure in India, the duo have had to get to grips with the country’s very different cultural blend as well as the wildlife that is part and parcel of everyday life there. And although they have planned their trip around some of the best surf the world has to offer over the next few months, it was their running muscles they had to flex last week. Walking around some ancient Indian ruins, one of their companions had her Ipod stolen by a monkey. The hapless chimp made a dash for it, closely followed by my friend’s son who caught up with the cheeky thief and somehow managed to recover the stolen piece of equipment.

What a lovely picture this unusual scenario has created in my mind’s eye and I am still desperate to ask Ollie just how exactly do you go about wresting a tiny Ipod from the determined grip of a wild monkey? On the other hand I also find myself wondering if the primate was after a listen to its favourite band… Arctic Monkeys apparently featured heavily on the playlist!