“If I was five years younger,” I said, “I’d still be 10 years older than everyone else here”.

I’ve always been one of the older players at our weekly five a side football game. We had one player in his forties, another few in their thirties (including me at 38), and most in their twenties. Tonight though I was the only one in my thirties, there was no one in their forties, and the opposition was straight out of university.

I don’t mind playing people who are younger than me. I’m not a great footballer but I do know how to run so I make up for my lack of skills by always moving around the pitch. This gives the impression I’m actually doing something even if all I’m doing is mimicking a headless chicken. I don’t see myself as better or worse than anyone else because I’m older than them. Yet, when it comes to triathlon, we’re always divided by age. The fastest under 30, under 40, under 100 etc. Yet, it’s a sport where age is less important than technique and where technology can make more of a difference than how many candles you blew out on your birthday.

So, instead I propose a new classification, one borrowed from Iain who suggested it during a race last year, instead of fastest man under 30 or fastest woman under 40, we should have:

• Fastest man with a mountain bike;
• Fastest woman without a trisuit;
• Fastest man with a £10k time trial bike he only rides twice a year because he’s frightened to take it out.

You get the picture.

What would you have?

Some days you can run, swim or cycle forever. Yesterday was one of those days. I swam at lunchtime and felt as strong on the final stroke as I did on the first. I cycled 15 miles in the evening on the turbo and I felt like I’d only just got started. Yesterday was a good day. Why can’t every day be like yesterday?

Today, on the other hand, is muthaf…

UPDATE
The good thing about a training plan is that some days you just have to follow it. It doesn’t accept arguments. It doesn’t accept excuses. It just tell you what to do and doesn’t take no for an answer. It’s less a training plan more of a training mum.

Another week without a bike ride outside. I should look at the relentless rain and frosty mornings as ideal preparation for Norseman but, call me a wimp, but I’d much rather sit on the turbo trainer in a warm room and watch telly than spend 90 minutes shivering and looking out for ice patches to break my neck on.

“You’re a wimp!“

“A wimp with an intact neck and fully functioning arms and legs.“

“Fair point.“

So, instead of cycling round Glasgow, I’ve been watching:

• Uncanny Kimmy Schmitt
• Brooklyn 99
• The Wolf of Wall Street
• Soccer Saturday
• Smashie & Nicie’s End of an Era (available on YouTube)
• And, the best of the lot this week, The Legend of Old Gregg episode of the Mighty Boosh.

While I know I should be watching a Sufferfest video and making myself “SUFFER!”,  I’d rather make myself laugh. And, with most sitcoms being 22 minutes, I can pick a variety of programmes to watch while on the Turbo to keep myself entertained while I try and keep a constant speed. In a few weeks, I’ll move to a more structured training but, for the moment, long steady sessions are helping me adjust to time on the bike and keeping a constant effort, at least that’s what I tell myself.

A fall, a twist, a sudden dark thought: “Have I just knackered my knee?”

I’m playing football on Wednesday. Five-a-side. 10 minutes in and I’m trying to shoot when, to avoid a tackle, I jump, land awkwardly on my right leg and feel it buckle. I’m on my back, staring up at the steel roof and I can start to feel a dull ache around my knee. “Are you alright?” I’m asked.

I think so. It’s not the sharp pain that I remember from tearing a ligament a few years ago, and, after standing up, I don’t feel any reaction when I put my weight on it. “I think so,” I say, but I go into goals for 10 minutes to let it settle and see how it reacts to movement. It seems okay.

I come back out and, as soon as I try and pass the ball, my right leg buckles again. No pain. No reaction. I’m up again straight away but I play the rest of the game wondering if I’ve damaged it more than I first realised – and I wonder whether the adrenaline of playing is stopping me from feeling the pain that would tell me to stop.

I go to sleep later bracing myself for a reaction in the morning.

I wake up and try and bend my knee to see how it reacts. Nothing. Then a twinge. Then nothing. I’m lucky, but I don’t push it. I take Thursday off from training and use it as a rest day instead. Today, I’ll have a short BRIC session to test it on the bike and road. Next week, I think I’ll give football a miss.

If you gave me a choice between money or power I’d choose cake every time. I love cake – and chocolate and sugar and sweets.

I know that part of training involves eating healthily but the thought of a sliced cucumber after 90 minutes on a turbo is as enticing as, well, a sliced cucumber. I want a Mars Bars, a Twix, a Battenberg cake or, better yet, a ring donut with extra sugar sprinkled on top. Rewards should be rewarding.

But one of the dangers of training is the idea that just because you’ve sat on a bike for a bit means that you can then eat whatever you want, and how much you want. Going out for a run is not a licence to eat an entire packets of Custard Creams.

That’s why I start keeping track of my weight when I start training. I’m not someone who thinks about their weight; I don’t overeat; I have proper cooked from scratch meals most nights; I rarely drink and I don’t smoke. But give me a Mars Bar after running and I’ll eat it – and the Rocky biscuits in the cupboard and the pudding in the fridge.

So, as part of my training for Norseman I’ll keep track of my weight to make sure that I’m not losing everything I’m gaining by gaining more than I’m losing. It’ll be a piece of cake. Or not cake. A piece of cucumber (covered in cake).

Current weight: 12 stone 4 pounds.

I work in Larbert in an office park next door to a butcher and a baker but, sadly, not a candle stick maker*. I have one hour for lunch which just enough time to get to a swimming pool for a lunchtime swim. I could jump on the M9 motorway and get to Grangemouth leisure centre where the pool is divided into 25m lanes but, even though its further away, I go to the Mariner Centre in Falkirk instead.

The Mariner Centre doesn’t have lanes. It doesn’t even have a regular shape. It’s shaped like a shell, with a large children’s pool in one half and a deeper pool in the other. Families come here with young kids. Swimmers don’t – but they should. Because the Mariner Centre has one thing other pools lack: every 30 minutes they switch on their wave machine for five minutes.

I try and time my swim so I arrive just before the waves start and I finish just after the second waves end.

It’s brilliant.

The pool is usually quiet (on Monday there was only one other man in the ‘deep pool’) but when the waves switch on, if there are families, they usually leave because the kids are too small to face the… tsunami.

The waters get gradually choppier. The waves start to bounce of the sides of the pool until, in the middle, the waves crash over my head as I try and swim through them.

I love it.

I tell myself it’ll be good practice for Norseman and swimming in the fjord but that’s not the reason I go there. It’s fun being battered by the waves, trying to breathe properly by breathing between crests, feeling like I’m not moving as I’m caught in the current, then, seconds later, shooting forward as the current swirls behind me.

It’s only five minutes. The waves subside as quickly as they come. Back to laps. Back to work. But if there’s a better way to spend a lunch break, I haven’t found it yet.

*We don’t have a candlestick maker but we do have the best named building: the headquarter’s of ‘Mrs Tilly’s’ – the cake and confectionary brand. Their office is called ‘The Indulgence Factory’.

What sex is your bike? Is it male, is it female?

Does it matter if you’re a man, do you think of your bike as masculine first? If you’re a woman, do you give it a girl’s name?

Cars have sex (not in a Crash type way, you know what I mean). Cars have names. I have a Mini Paceman. His name is Spaceman – and he is a he. There’s no question about that. He’s squat and brutish and acts like he could easily pass for one of the dwarves in the Hobbit. Not the mad one. Or the one who wants to get it on with her-from-Lost. One of the ones at the back. Thingamejig or Whatzizname or Gerald. One of them.

I don’t know about bikes though. Do bikes have names? Mine is a Focus Cayo Evo 4.0. Red and white. Thick bars. A bit of poser with matching saddle, tyres and handlebar tape in white. He should be a squaddie. Not one for thinking but good for going for a hundred miles in a straight line without thinking. I think ‘he’s’ a man – but, last week, as I cycled for the first time outdoors, I thought I’m not sure. Could it want to be a woman? Is it a woman? What sex is it? Could I even have a Danish Bicycle?

I’ve never given it a name. Never thought to either, which is why I stop and ask – what sex is your bike? Is it male, is it female or is it Eddie Raymayne?