Running slower is one of the hardest things you will do. I’ve tried to run slower and I can’t – it feels like you’re fighting a current that’s always pushing you to go faster. It’s easier to run fast because sport is all about speed, endurance and extending the limits of human possibility.  It is a positive action. Onwards and upwards.

In triathlons, the longest events – long swim, over 100 miles on a bike and then a marathon to finish – are known as Ironman events. 

Ironman refers to the iron will shown by competitors to compete in the challenging conditions of its first course in Kona in Hawaii. It wasn’t the fastest who would win, or the most physically capable, it was the one with the iron willpower to compete through draining heat and strength sapping head winds over 12 hours of racing.

The name fitted the course – if not female competitors – and, as such, it stuck.

But it strikes me that many races have followed this template without thinking what it means for the rest of us.

While many races are named after their location: the London Marathon, The Great North Run, ParkRun. Often a race will describe the hardest aspects of the course. Slateman refers to the slate covered hills of Snowdonia. Brutalfest has a series of races that are, well, brutal.

It’s human nature, it seems, to concentrate on the worst that could happen. And to overcome it. Race organisers are no different, but wouldn’t it be nice to be offered Flatfest, The Downhill Marathon or Pretty Flowers 10K?

Despite organisers’ attempts to make me go faster and further, I have tried to run slow.  At the Dublin Marathon in 2008 I started with a knee injury. It hadn’t healed as I had hoped and it was still giving me problems in my last run before the race. “I’ll just start slow,” I thought, “and see what happens.”

But then I’m surrounded by thousands of runners, all eager and ready to start. And while I feel I’m running slower, I’ve run the first mile 30 seconds faster as I’ve been swept up in the wave and been unable to judge my pace due to those faster runners around me. I thought I was slowing, I wanted to be  Sunday driving but I was going F2 speeds in an F1 race. Running slow with other people is hard, unless those other people are running the pace you want to run. 

Running slow when alone is tough. It can feel too easy. It doesn’t feel like training, so you start to speed up.  You look at your watch and you remember that you swore not to wear one and you curse the author who suggested you didn’t need to look at your pace. 

I get it now. Sometimes you need to use technology to help – and running faster or running slower is one of those times. But I struggle with a watch telling me what to do because watches can’t speak. They beep. And beeps trigger my PETSD: Physical Education Traumatic Stress Disorder. Which is like PTSD but with plimsolls. 

One beep and I’m back in a gym hall at the Stornoway Primary. There are foot high wooden benches along the walls. Climbing bars. A mounting horse. Scuff marks on the battered, shiny parquet floor. And a fire exit. Cause all gyms had a fire exit which was used for fire drills and, more importantly ventilation as the gym would heat up faster than a Pop-tart and convert from gym to sauna by the time I run my first lap of the dreaded ‘Bleep Test’.

The Beep Test was a simple idea made flesh and that flesh was then tortured repeatedly by our P.E. teacher. He stood at the side of the gym with a portable stereo. He would load it with a cassette tape and, before he pressed play, he would say:

“Line up on the back wall. When you hear the beep, run to the opposite wall. If you don’t touch the wall before you hear the next beep. You’re out. If you do touch the wall, wait, and then run back when you hear the beep. Continue until there is no one left.”

This last man standing physical elimination was also the premise of Stephen King’s horror novel  and film ‘The Long Walk’. Primary school teaching should not share any similarity with any of Stephen King’s ideas. What next? Winter ski trips to the Overlook hotel?

I lined up with the rest of the boys in my class. This was the eighties, so the teachers had already eliminated the girls for being too slow because, well, girls can’t run. A digression: one of those girls eventually became a world record holder as the fastest woman to cycle from John O’Groats to Lands End. Back to the gym: BEEP!

The first lap was easy. The second too. The BEEPs were well spaced but by the third and fourth a few of the ‘heavier’ boys were eliminated. BEEP five and six became serious. There was only a second or two to rest before we had to run again. We were getting faster and closer to sprinting to make it. Our teacher watched emotionless, like Robert Patrick as the T1000 in Terminator 2. The teacher wasn’t in charge. It was only the machine. The unrelenting never-ending machine. BEEP. Faster. BEEP. Faster. BEEP. Faster. 

Five of us left. I’m struggling. I barely made the last touch. My stomach is cramped and the only boys left with me are the swots who go to the local running club. They wear singlets. I can’t beat them. And the next BEEP isn’t a BEEP it’s DOOM. Stop. DOOM. Take the walk of shame and join your fellow losers in the corner of the gym furthest from the fire exits so you can drown not just in your sweat but in your shame. 

The Bleep Test was designed to break the self-esteem of a generation of schoolchildren. It was a perpetual motion elimination machine designed to do one thing and one thing only: tell you that no matter how fast you ran you would never ever be good enough for it. 

That’s why I struggle with both running fast and running slow. I like to run at my own pace. And that pace is not your pace, just as your pace is not mine. The Bleep Test told us we’d never be fast enough. The Ultra Iron Mega Badass Brutal Hardcore Three Legged Race tells us we’re not tough enough. Ignore both. Run your own pace. Slow down if you want to. Stop if you want to. Don’t listen to the beeps.  

A sprint is different from running faster. It’s a short intensive burst of speed that you reserve for special moments like racing 100 or 200 metres on a track; the last minute of a race as you dash to the finish line; or you realise that you are in the wrong court and you have documents which must be lodged that day and the right court closes at 5pm and the time is 4:58pm.

That last example may just have been me.

After a mix up as a trainee solicitor, where I was told to go to the Court of Session, in Edinburgh, to lodge a document, when the document was in fact due in the Sheriff Court, I have an unverified claim to have broken the land speed record during my sprint between the two courts. More impressive, I didn’t need Adidas’s cheat boots, I had black leather dress shoes. 

When I’m not sprinting between courtrooms, I normally reserve my sprints for the end of a race and my favourite finish line was at the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon in San Francisco – a race that starts with a 1.5 mile open water swim from Alcatraz Island to the shore, before a hilly bike leg and an 8km run along the coast to finish. 

As a triathlon, it also had that quirk of triathlon known as triathlon tattoos, where every competitor is given a temporary tattoo with their race number. This is so that if you drown during the swim they will know who you are. Which is fair enough. Who doesn’t want the reassurance of knowing that someone has thought, when they drown, at least they have a solid logistical identification system in place for the coroner? However, the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon didn’t stop there. It went one step further. They also stamped me with my age group. Why they didn’t also require the name of my next of kin and last will and testament, I don’t know. 

The good thing about the age group stamp was that it was on the back of my calf. And, as I ran round, I could see who was ahead of me by reading their calves: 18 – 24; 45 – 50 etc, and build up an extra picture of them in my mind as I beat them to the finish line. Which was a good idea, until 65 – 75 overtook me at the end. I swear he didn’t look a day over 45. 

Find a sprint. It doesn’t need a track or a starting pistol. You just need someone ahead of you, a finish line, and the sudden decision that you are not going to let them beat you. Pick your target. Check their age group stamp. Go.

If you say “I’m not lost” then that is a sure sign that you are, in fact, lost. Not that I was lost when I said it. I knew exactly where I was – in a wood, near Elgin, at night, in the dark, surrounded by deer – but I admit I may not have known quite exactly which path to take to get back to Elgin, and not end up, hours later, in Inverness.

Last week, I decided to try some night-time trail running. I was in Elgin and, while there are a lot of nice varied routes to run, there is one thing missing: hills. Elgin is flat. If you dropped a slinky, it would not slink. Run through town – flat. Run through Cooper Park – flat. Run to Maggot Wood (one of my favourite place names, as it does make you think how many maggots there must have been to name a whole wood after them) – flat. All completely flat.

For a change, I decided to run out of Elgin and try some trails through the hills on its western edge. I brought my head torch, found a willing companion who didn’t baulk when I said “fancy going to the dark woods tonight?”, and we set off to find a route through the trees.

Problem one: we didn’t know where we were going, or where any path might start.

Problem two: we didn’t know that everything looks like a path when you only have a head torch to guide you. A flat bit of grass between two trees looks like the start of a track when you can’t see further than three metres ahead.

Problem three: dear God, what are those glowing eyes in the woods? Head torches, we discovered, make every deer that glances in your direction look like it’s possessed by the Eye of Sauron.

Problem four: sometimes the darkness in front of you is not just darkness but a twenty-metre drop from the side of an old quarry. A good tip, quickly learned: only step where you can see the ground.

Problem five: if you hit an A road, turn back. A roads have no pavements, and cars racing at 70mph towards Inverness pass very close when you venture onto the verge.

Problem six: if you turn back, remember where you came from — so that when you finally meet three mountain bikers with powerful beams, you don’t have to say “I’m not lost, but do we turn left or right to get back to Elgin?”

Night running is genuinely good fun. Just remember where you are, what’s in front of you, and – probably most importantly – what isn’t.

Got up. Had breakfast. Feet up. Race done.

My goal of running the Edinburgh Marathon was derailed in Lille, France, two weeks ago.

I had a throat infection, I thought it was going, but it ballooned with a vengeance when I was in Lille, on holiday. In the morning, I was fine. By evening, I couldn’t swallow anything. Even gulping was a problem. My throat was a golf ball and Rory McIlroy was trying to chip it out of bunker. Every swallow was painful.

By morning I was checking local hospitals and rules for getting treatment abroad. By lunchtime, I was in the A&E department of Lille University hospital. By 2pm I’d been attacked by a scalpel wielding doctor. By 3 pm I was on my second IV drip. By 4pm I was back in the hotel and feeling a lot better. Drugs work. Bladed assaults work. Merci, French healthcare!

Saying that, I was prescribed steroids and antibiotics. When Mrs TwinBikeChild went to the pharmacy, the pharmacist asked her if I was the size of an elephant.

“More like a giraffe with a big nose,” she said.

“In that case, I can’t give him these drugs. If he takes these doses, he won’t sleep for a month. He can have half.”

I think I must be the first person to have had a drug intervention before taking the drugs to become addicted!

Even with the reduced dose, I was still awake for three days, and had enough steroids to star in a Marvel movie. And I had to take them until a few days before the Edinburgh marathon.

With the infection, the emergency room trip and a week long recovery, I wasn’t going to start the marathon just three days later. So, for this year, my report is a simple one: woke up, stayed in Glasgow, feet up.

Ah, the Scottish B&B experience. A warm welcome, a steaming cuppa, and… a packet of Lichfield’s Fruit Shortcake. It’s a culinary enigma, a biscuit that defies definition, a taste that lingers like raisin-tinged depression. You’ll find it nestled beside the half-empty hanky box and the kettle that smells suspiciously of boiled socks.

Let’s be honest, calling it a “fruit shortcake” is a crime against both fruit and cake. It’s more like a collection of fossilised raisins trapped in a dry, crumbly tomb. “Dead fly biscuits,” as they’re affectionately known, seem to be the preferred treat of grannies and funeral attendees. But how, oh how, did this culinary abomination become the ubiquitous offering in Scottish B&Bs?

You might get lucky. A packet of proper shortbread (the real Scottish biscuit royalty) might grace your room. Or perhaps an oat crumble, a fleeting moment of delicious normalcy. But the Lichfield lurks, ever-present, a testament to some unseen force.

Why? Why do B&B owners subject their guests to this? Surely, they’re not blind to the tragedy unfolding with each bite? If we’re going to inflict a badly named biscuit on unsuspecting tourists, can we at least opt for the glorious, buttery perfection that is shortbread?

Now, this blog is notoriously averse to actual research. But, in the spirit of journalistic… well, something, we delved into the depths of the internet to uncover the truth.

It turns out Lichfield’s is a “luxury catering brand” catering to the hospitality sector. They offer everything from “Fair Trade speciality teas” to “award-winning coffee beans” and, of course, those infamous individually wrapped biscuits. They pride themselves on “enhancing the guest experience.” (One can only assume “enhancing” here is a subjective term).

Apparently, in 2009, Lichfield’s expanded its range, adding muffins and flapjacks to their repertoire. They focused on individually wrapped treats designed to complement hot drinks and boost customer spending.

And there, my friends, lies the answer. The packaging.

Yes, the humble packaging. Lichfield’s has mastered the art of individually wrapped, seemingly convenient treats, designed specifically for the hospitality sector. They’ve cornered the market by catering to the practical needs of B&B owners, ensuring a consistent, pre-packaged offering.

It’s about ease, consistency and cost. It’s not about taste.

So, while we may lament the “dead fly biscuit” and yearn for the buttery embrace of proper shortbread, we must acknowledge Lichfield’s strategic brilliance. They’ve conquered the B&B world, one depressingly dry biscuit at a time.

But, let’s be clear: just because they’re everywhere doesn’t mean they’re good. And anyone with a modicum of taste will agree.