15 days to go before the opening ceremony and 8 days before I leave for Torino. The Olympic flame arrives in Cortina today where the flame was lit on this very same day for the start of the 1956 Winter Olympics. Some light snow forecast in Pragelato over the next few days though the organisers have a mini mountain of artificial snow as a reserve. Skiing conditions are great just now in Oslo, about -5C, clear blue skies and great snow.

Arrived home yesterday evening with plans to go skiing and had just parked Betsy when a big sliver BMW pulled up at speed and a man jumped out holding aloft a container in his hand. ‘Rory, is it you?’ Yep, it’s Goran again, come to see how good I am in French and forcing a ‘Oui’ into a container.

Invited himself, his assistant Wenche and his son in for Barry’s Tea and some of Eadaoin’s Christmas Cake (Eadaoin, I've been holding it for special occasions!). WADA the drugs testing body are doing a lot of testing of athletes before the Olympics and even though I am at the back of the field I still get tested. Which is good I suppose though it seems a waste of money and resources testing a guy like me who dopes himself with cod liver oil in the morning and isn’t going to reach the podium in this lifetime. Though that reminds me, I actually did purchase some old skiing medals here in Norway, sad bastard that I am, so I just have to find another Irish guy to race against (Trevor, you'll do since you've never skied in your life) and then I can stand on the podium as the Irish Nordic Skiing Champion! I'm just so unbeatable! yea, right.

After much chit chat and more tea I was able to release that one word of French and divided up the sample between A and B and signed myself of to the faith of HPLC and GC testing equipment. Even made them sit through my 2003 World Champs interview on NRK TV which is most embarrassing to say the least.

Also collected Rolf’s package yesterday which contained the ski suit and warm up suit in black and lots of orange. And he did get the spelling correct for Ireland, he was just trying to wind me up! So now I look as though I am the grand master of an Orange Lodge, just need the bowler hat and an umbrella. Good to have orange as we tend to overdo it with the green. Will be popular with the Dutch and the Ukrainians at least! Waiting still for the ‘pièce de resistance’ from the US, the little green number I’ll be wearing on the big day.

Skiing intervals last night, mostly up-hill. Pretty tough going I must say. Have neglected interval training the past while so I need to work on this in the next few weeks.

All the Norwegian team are up in Seiser Alm (Alpe di Suisse) tucking into their altitude training. Alpe de Suisse is Europe’s highest mountain plateau at about 2000 m. Was here ski orienteering a few years ago at the European Champs. Great location and fantastic weather. I’ll just have 2 weeks at 1500 m in Sestriere to adapt, hopefully it should be enough.

Not getting to bed early enough these days so have to start working on getting at least 7-8 hours to recharge the batteries.
What does Rory eat anyway, you might ask. I eat plenty
Breakfast: Museli Yogurt, cultured blueberry milk, spoon of cod liver oil & Ginseng, pill pop Vit C, Moller multi vit & minerals, Magnesium.
At work: Bananas, oranges apples pears (about 10 pieces of fruit). A 'solskinn' bun or two.
Lunch: Either two open sandwiches, usually with fish and egg. Or a dinner of spuds with some sort of fish or meat.
Dinner: Usually spuds mashed in Mountain butter and veg (the good ol' carrot) with whole trout (from Peru of all places!) or Salmon or Pork. Also have a salad with tomatoes, cucumber, feta, tuna, pine nuts, avacado and coated with some pumpkin seed oil and whatever else is about. And usually some cheese (brought a small truckload from France at the weekend) and a rare imported ginger snap (thanks Eadaoin!) for dunking in a milky cup of Barrys Glod blend Tea. Yum!

Though yesterday I did have pizza as it was late when I eventually skied up to the front door with my head lamp blazing.