I want to walk on the moon.

I want to follow in the footsteps of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin because… moon men are fannys!

I’ll show them how a real man walks on the moon!

Take Neil Armstrong. He could have said anything when he opened that door and stepped out onto the lunar surface. He wanted to talk about what a giant leap it was for mankind. Me, I’d have said “Does anyone smell cheese? Because this moon is made from chedder!”

That joke, copyright me, aged 7.

Instead, he went for the safe route, the boring route, the route of the second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin. Why was he called Buzz? Because he was NASA’s B man….

That joke, copyright me, aged 39.

No-one remember Buzz because he was the man holding the camera, not the one posing in front of it. Buzz was an intergalactic skivvy whose sole job was to avoid getting his thumb on the lens and to make sure he’d didn’t cut off Neil Armstrong’s head when he planted the flag.

Of course, today, Buzz would have been in the shot because he’d have taken a ‘moon selfie’ and he and Neil would have trout pouted on the surface before taking an artfully lit photo of their space rations and captioned it “Trying to open your breakfast while wearing space gloves 🙂 #firstmoonproblems #yolo #blessed.”

But, if Buzz had been smart, he could have been more famous than Neil Armstrong. I don’t know about you, but when I’m driving, I always need to go to the toilet. It’s something about the rhythm, the bumpiness of the journey, but within five miles I’m desperate for the loo. Imagine doing that for three days. Cooped up in lunar module. The door opens. What do you do? I know, what I’d do. I’d have a pish in the nearest crater. That’s if I could wait that long. Neil would be half through his speech when –

“It’s a small step for man, it’s a giant – PENIS. MY GOD, MAN, PUT IT AWAY.”

I tell you what I don’t get. Why the push to be the biggest, best, furthest, fastest? It’s always extremes. But there are two sides. Fast must have slow. Best has worst. When skydiver Felix Baumgartner jumped from space, I wanted to show the world instead the shortest skydive in history: me, lying down on the floor and not moving for twenty seconds.

While Usain Bolt breaks record books I’d take part in the 100 metres by having a picnic on the Olympic track. I’d be munching on a plum tomato and not making any move to move even an inch. The stadium could go home. I’d go home. I’d get a good nights kip and, in the morning, or maybe the afternoon, or maybe even the next day, or year, I’d come back and I’d cross the line. F*ck it, I might never cross it because I’m the world’s slowest man.

And I was thinking about this because I read this letter in the latest issue of 220 Triathlon.

And part of me thought: “When did Triathlon progression become a race to Iron distance?” Progression is not just about going longer and longer until you’re running, swimming and cycling all day? You progress by getting faster, or getting better at a part of the race, or by just enjoying it more no matter what speed you go.

So, part of me rebels and says “I don’t want to go to the moon”.

At least not yet.

At least not first.

It wouldn’t be special. I’d wait until everyone else has gone. My mum, my dad, the folk I went to school with, even Steven Hawking in his wheelchair, and when, and only when, everyone else in the world has been will I go. Me, Andrew Todd, the last man on the moon!