My last ride before Ironman 2015 was my usual circular route to Whitelee wind farm and back. I wanted to see if, after months of training, it felt any easier and did I notice a difference.

I did. I felt stronger, faster and that I could have easily carried on – which was good, as it’s a 25 mile loop and the Ironman had another 87 miles…

I decided to ride the same loop this time but in a more scientific way: I would check Strava to see if I could beat my records around the course.

And…

I DIDN’T!!!!

I came second… again and again and again. All my records, a silver medal.

I blame Iain.

He lent me his time-trial TT bike and for the last couple of weeks I’ve tried it on this loop and have, inadvertently skewered all my records with the TT bike times rather than my own bike.

Now I know how F1 driver feel when they race Lewis Hamilton. You can be your best, you can even train harder than anyone else, but the person with the best tech always wins.

Damn you, TT equipped Andrew!