Maintaining a run streak isn’t always that easy, not when you’ve got ultra marathons and marathons to do, and certainly not when you’ve got to travel either. I’d thought I’d do one mile in the morning before travelling, but no matter how we travelled to the airport it was going to be a very early start if I ran. It would be much better to run once in Milan.

Before this trip we’d weighed up the options for getting there. A train ticket would have cost us £113pp for one way, or £225pp for an open return. When comparing this to the €29.90pp we were paying to get from Milan to Florence, it was shockingly expensive. The next possibility was a taxi, which is a cost we’d split between us, but would still be £117-£159 each way. There was also the National Express bus at £43pp each way, but for that to get us to Heathrow we’d need to be at the station by 04:30 - around 90 minutes earlier than if we were to drive. I don’t think my sister would have appreciated that early start at all. So, even with the fuel costs being 50% more than they were a year ago, it was better and in most cases cheaper to pay £159 for long stay parking.

Following more research, I did however come up with another option: renting a parking space. There are websites around that allow you to rent parking spaces from businesses that have got spare, and even in some cases there are people renting out their driveways. One such place is the Travel Inn at Heathrow which would charge me £90 for the duration we’d need it. We’d still need to get to Terminal 5, but it was over the road from the Thistle Hotel where you can pay £6/pp to take a driverless Pod to the terminal. So for a return journey would be £114 between us, and whatever the fuel cost would be (I’d estimated this to be around £40).

Unsure what the efficiency of airport security would be like at the tail end of this surge period, I decided I wanted to be at the airport no less than 2.5 hours before the flight. This did however mean leaving out no later than 05:30, and driving through rush hour. It was nothing short of a miracle that we managed to fit mine and my sisters luggage into my car, considering how small it is. Unfortunately my sister had to have my backpack in front of her, and her own on her knee for two whole hours. That wasn’t quite what we’d planned, but she managed.

Hours later, we arrived at the Premier Inn, and parking up was as simple as just finding a free space, and crossing over the road to the aforementioned Thistle Hotel. However, the receptionist said that the Pod system is for hotel guests only, and advised we’d need to take the 423 bus to Terminal 5 instead. Nothing on the website said this, and other people that had used it had suggested this was not the case. The bus however was only a ten minute wait, and maybe only five minutes more to reach the terminal, meaning we’d arrived at the airport at 08:10.

I’d expected bag drop and security to be horrendous, but in reality we got through them both in around twenty minutes and was possibly one of the quickest times I’ve had. Whilst I breezed straight through security, my sister got stopped and had to use the body scanner and the wand. The gates once through were incredibly busy though, with people queuing at cafes for breakfast. We’d got time to kill, so had a hot drink and chocolate chip cookie each as we sat and watched the aircraft.

The gate announcement was close to the gate being opened, so it was incredibly fortunate that by pure chance we’d chosen the chairs at that very gate. This was one of those where you board in groups onto a bus, get jumbled up, and then board the plane. It took forty minutes to board, wait around a bit, taxi, and take-off. It’d been predicted we’d be about an hour late landing in Milan Linate even though we’d ‘left on time’; as the French air traffic control was on strike so we had to go a different way. This went a little better than originally predicted as they’d planned early to avoid it.

I think some of the airspace may have been more crowded than normal as towards the end of the flight I saw a light blue aircraft, TUI maybe, rocket past us in the opposite direction a little below us, but very close. I’d never seen this happen before.

The flight took just over ninety minutes, and landed around fifteen minutes late. What took the time here though was de-planing. They took a bus load first, and we had to wait for the next bus, delaying us by quite a bit. The queue for immigration wasn’t that bad at all, and took maybe fifteen minutes at the most. We got even luckier after that as Lindsay’s suitcase arrived as she got to the carousel, and mine a few minutes after I did.

We could have booked a taxi, but that would have cost €30 to get there, whereas a combination of buses and trams would get us there for €2. Just so long as it took no more than ninety minutes. When we left the terminal, the first bus stops we saw were over the road, but as I was checking those out I saw the ticket machines next to what was more likely the correct one. When we got there I could see ‘73’, confirming I was actually right. It was then a short wait for the bus to arrive, and everyone piled on like sardines in a very warm can. Due to the delay in deplaning it meant it’d taken an hour from touch-down to boarding the bus.

I kept one eye on Google Maps so I’d know when we needed to get off and onto the next bus. This next stop was only a short walk, but we had a bit of a wait for this. Whilst there we spotted comic art graffiti on the wall of a building that simply said ‘WOW’. We later found out this was a museum of comic books and animation. It’d not been a place we’d planned to visit, but now we knew about it, we’d try our best to get there. I did however get a few photographs of the outside before the bus turned up.

This was a much longer bus ride, and it wasn’t that pleasant at all. It was packed again, and people tried to squeeze through spaces that didn’t exist. It took twenty minutes longer than scheduled, but eventually we got off just in time to see the tram we needed arriving at that next stop. We rushed to get it, and got incredibly lucky boarding it just in time. At the other end it was then only a short walk to the apartment, getting there for 16:15. It was fifteen minutes later than I’d told the host, so that wasn’t too bad at all.

There had however been a rail strike on until 15:00 today, and our host had not set off to meet us early enough for the agreed time. This meant we were waiting for an hour outside, but when they arrived they did buy us a bottle of water and some shortbread biscuits as an apology. The apartment wasn’t bad at all - it’d got a fully fitted kitchen that was better than any I’d used in Cyprus last year - it had everything I needed to cook food.

We changed quickly, and then headed out to the Il Gigante supermarket. This took us across a bridge past Milano Nord Park, and made us walk a little further than needed. At least we were exploring though. It took us around thirty minutes to get all the food we needed for the next few days, costing around €50 between us as we’d not exactly gone for cheap options. We chose what we felt like eating, and didn’t question the prices. We were on holiday after all, and would be spending less than we would in a restaurant.

Once everything was put away in the apartment it was finally time for me to continue my run streak for day 863. I decided to run around the nearby section of park: through the avenue of trees to what turned out to be a small lake that was busy with people sitting on the grass, walking, and even the occasional runner. I ran along the water and found a small loop that was perfect for what I needed today, and passed an outdoor gym along the way. With a mile done, I returned to the apartment and started preparing a tuna pasta bake.

I left my sister to keep an eye on the food as it cooked, and showered and changed just in time to sit down to eat. As usual I’d cooked far more pasta than we needed. It was a simple meal, but it wasn’t bad really. We’d also bought an apricot tart we’d cut into four to have a slice each for dessert after having done the washing up.

For the remainder of the evening we relaxed, and got ready for the day ahead.