The best football team ever? Most would say Brazil 1970 but many would argue that Holland 1974 were even better. The men in orange, of course, fell at the last hurdle, losing 2 -1 to West Germany in that year's World Cup Final. Word on the street was that the morale of the Dutch was torn apart in the week before the Final by the selfishness and lack of team spirit of their three superstars.

The parallels between the inventors of Total Football and the inventors of Amateur Hour Middle - Aged Iron Man are worrying. For Cruyff, Neeskens and Rensenbrink read Elliott G., Orton and Disson. If, as seems likely, we fall before even the first hurdle the blame lies squarely with the Radio Three.

The rest of us - or The Other Eight as we are now known - first heard about this radio business with a seemingly innocuous last minute addition to last week's Diary:

"... three of us will be appearing on BBC London 94.9FM's Sunday Sports Show between 2-3pm this Sunday to discuss the Challenge..."

Helped enormously by the news that the Sunday Sports Show was to be held on Sunday, we crouched around our radios on Sunday between 2 and 3. We were looking forward to Orton, Disson and Elliott entertaining "Fighting Talk" legend Steve Bunce with stories about what it means to be part of the 2CC - friendship, camaraderie, team ethic and a collective commitment to a common goal - and maybe giving their Team mates a name-check or two.

Instead, we got a cynical exercise in self publicity, with Orton and Disson making a transparent attempt to launch a media career as the thinking man's Ant and Dec. The two of them wittered on endlessly about the "double marathon cycling challenge that the THREE of us are taking on" - sitting at home, we wondered if we'd been sacked from the Team but not told. In the only mention we did get, we were described as "hormonal and difficult".

The Radio Three couldn't even stay loyal to each other - Giles' absence from the studio was put down to "man -flu" when we all know that the poor man has now been struck down by bronchitis, and once Dec Disson had come up with the nickname "Man -flu Boy", the Buncester wouldn't let it go.

Buncie Boy has invited Ant and Dec back to tell him how the THREE of them get on. They are shown below with Ant and Dec sporting matching grey 2CC cashmere v-necks that have certainly not been made available to the rest of us.

On the bright side, we got loads of great publicity for the 2CC, three mentions for the web-site and a long discussion about the auction. Mr Bunce was of the view that our Grand Slam tennis extravaganza is worth £20,000 on its own so we are hoping we can get him to come along and bid!

Rhys is this week's top injury case. After a 16 miler at the weekend his ankle swelled up like a football. When the physiotherapist told him he had acute tendonitis, Rhys blushed with embarrassment but was secretly flattered.

Eleven condoms packed full of walnuts. That's what were going to look like in our race day running shirts that arrived yesterday. We are going to look awesomely hench/ripped/pumped if we can get into them. Forget carb-loading, Seb is going to be eating one portion of meat or fish a day, no carbs and two diet shakes for the next two weeks. The term "muffin-top" springs to mind.

For those of us not injured, this weekend is the last big run. For Angus, it's a last big run and a 100 mile cycle.