TwinBikeDoll found a doll. I say ‘doll’, I mean the start of a brand new horror franchise. Yikes.
TwinBikeChild’s Play (Andrew)
Category Archives: Andrew
B.Y.O.P. (Andrew)
Mrs TwinBikerun has an annual health check with BUPA arranged by her work.
“Does your work see the results?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“Then why do they arrange it? Don’t they want to know if you’re going to drop dead at your desk?”
“I think they assume I’ll tell them if anything is wrong.”
“And would you?”
“Well, HR would not be my first call…”
During the assessment, Mrs TwinBikeRun asked about heart palpitations.
“How long do they last?” the Doctor asked her.
“Just a few seconds. I take a deep breath and everything is okay after that.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” said the Doctor, “we would only be concerned if they lasted more than five minutes.”
Five minutes?!?!? So, if my heart decides to recreate a drum and bass track for four and minutes and fifty nine seconds, I shouldn’t be worried. But if the cardiac rave lasts one more second then call an ambulance.
“That doesn’t seem right,” I said to Mrs TwinBikeRun, after she was home.
“It’s what the Doctor said,” she said.
“Aye,” I said, “but remember what happened two weeks ago.”
Two weeks ago we had to spend three days in hospital with TwinBikeChild after we spotted blood in her poop. It turned out to be harmless but, when checked at hospital, she had the same signs as e-coli and had to be treated as if she had it, even though the Doctors knew from initial tests that it was unlikely that she did. However, the only way to confirm it wasn’t e-coli was a test that required a 48 hour period to run it.
“That was different,” TwinBikeWife said.
“How,” I asked.
“That was incompetence.”
TwinBikeWife had first phoned NHS24 for an initial diagnosis. The person she spoke to was very helpful and when she asked if, when they went to hospital, she should bring a sample of the poop, he’d encouraged her to do so. Which is how she ended up with a clean Strawberry jam jar of poop in her handbag.
“What’s that,” asked the Doctor in A&E, when Norsewife brought out the jam jar.
“It’s not for your toast,” she said, “it’s a sample of what TwinBikeChild did.”
The Doctor looked at it the same way that a chef would look at steak and ice-cream. Technically there is no reason the two things cannot be put together but, in reality, dear God, why would you do it? A strawberry jam jar of poop?
“It’s okay,” the Doctor said, “we’ll take our own sample the next time she goes to the toilet. Its good you called NHS24 but we’ll do our own thing.”
And by “own thing” the Doctor clearly meant “the correct thing not involving a BYOP (bring your own poop)”.
This wasn’t the first time we’d been in hospital this year with TwinBikeChild. We had to come in a few months earlier when she developed red spots across her back. NHS24 recommended she was checked to make sure it wasn’t meningitis, even though she passed the initial tests.
As suspected, it wasn’t meningitis, it turned out to be scarlet fever, a condition treated with anti-biotics and which saw TwinBikeChild almost back to normal the next day. However, unlile the poop jar, which we could not pass onto anyone else, TwinBikeChild passed her Scarlet fever to me. And then she passed two other throat infections within the space of two months. She was starting nursery and she was picking up every bug and making sure to share them with us. I spent weeks unable to eat more than a yoghurt as it was too sore to swallow. If I’d been racing this year I would have lost weeks of training as I had to spend a few months building my strength up before getting back into any kind of routine.
Good health is not something we can guarantee when setting out on a training programme. The best we can do is to remember basic hygiene and hope for the best.
And to get your wife to carry the poop jar in her handbag.
Kirkintilloch 12.5K 2026 (Andrew)
Bang!
And another runner drove into the back of my car.
I knew he was running because, after we’d pulled over, parked up, and he got out, he was was wearing trackie bottoms and a pair of trainers.
“Running today?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Don’t go too fast!” I didn’t add.
I was only a few hundred metres from the start line when a car in front of me indicated it was turning left into a side road, I slowed down and the car behind me didn’t .
Bang!
Luckily, it was just a minor knock and while he had a crack in his front bumper I only had a couple of small scratches, and I wasn’t even sure if they were new or had been there before and I’d just not noticed.
I can understand why his eyes were not on the road. There’s not a lot of parking near the start and he was probably checking the side roads to see if he could spot somewhere to park. He should have been looking straight ahead!
But no damage done, at least not to my car, so I took his number and carried onto register and race.
This years race was a cold and sharp but thankfully dry. The race always represents a good early year test with some rolling hills at the start and end. However, since work on a housing development meant a change to the route two years ago, it’s not quite as hilly as it used to be.
There was a water station around the halfway point with cups big enough to take an extra large scoop of cinema popcorn. But, strangely, just a mouthful of water. Was the amount of water of in inverse to the size of the cup? Or was the cup so big that the water become small in comparison? There was actually two litres of H20 in those cups, it just seemed like a drop.
As always the race is well organised by Kirkintilloch Olympians and it has a good selection of biscuits at the end.
Thankfully, no one hit me on the way home.
The Long Run (Andrew)
“I’m going for a long run.” I said to Mrs TwinBikeRun and immediately I felt like a right pillock.
A “long run”. What the blimey is a “long run” and why would Mrs TwinBikeRun care. She’s only interested in knowing when I might be back.
“I’m going out, I’ll back in an hour,” would be a better thing to say because how long is a long run? It’s meaningless. For me, a long run means I’ll be more than an hour. For Elise Kipchoge, a long run means 20 miles and he’ll be back in 20 minutes. For Jasmin Paris, ultramarathoner, it means three days, fifteen mountains, and a new world record. A long run means something different depending on the runner.
For anyone else, a long run is meaningless. If you don’t run, then a long run is just ‘a run’. Not long, or short, just something that someone else does.
So why do we have it? What’s the point a long run?
I think we have a long run so that we have something to boast about when we’re training. No one boasts about a Tuesday night regular run or a Friday morning jog to work. But, on Monday, you might say when asked what you did for the weekend: “I went for a long run!”
Not that anyone is impressed. You can tell if they’re impressed if they say “how’s your legs?”. If they ask that then you know they’re not impressed, they’re just polite!
We rarely say “I’m going for a short run”. Instead it’s just a run. We don’t want people to know it’s short. We don’t do short. We don’t do easy. We either run or we run long, that’s it.
But is that the right way to think? I’m training for the Edinburgh marathon and every week I need to have a run which is longer than others. An extended run. A run with additional miles. A run that I am absolutely not calling a long run. Instead I call it my run. And every other run in the week is my short run. In my head this run is normal and everything else is easy, Now I have one run a week and three short runs. Easy.
By thinking about my long run as just a run, I’m trying to make the marathon appear shorter, at least in my head, because it won’t be a long run either, it’ll just be a run.
Sadly, while my mind is helping, my calves have yet to catch up and still complain my when I finish my long run run.
“I’m going for a long lie down”I say to Mrs TwinBikeRun.
“Do you mean a lie down?” She asks.
“No! Everyone knows what a long lie down means!”
Review: Coffee First, Then The World (Andrew)
Coffee First, Then The World is the story of Scottish cyclist, Jenny Graham’s attempt to become the fastest woman to cycle around the world unaided. The “unaided” point is important because she makes clear in the book that wanted to do this fully unsupported, even down to making the people who would ride with her ride behind her so she wouldn’t benefit from any slipstream they might produce.
The book offers an interesting perspective on more usual adventure books as by usual adventure books I mean male adventure books. The challenges for a lone female cyclist, camping wild and meeting strangers along the road, are very different from a six foot bloke built like a tank after months of cycling. Even an offer of help comes with a healthy dose of suspicion as to why a man may be helping a woman in the middle of nowhere.
Jenny Graham comes across as very optimistic, positive and driven and is always thankful for the opportunity she has had to make this attempt happen.
Overall, an enjoyable and inspiring read.
Nigel Barge 10K 2026 (Andrew)
In 2016 I wrote a comprehensive report on the Nigel Barge 10k covering both its history and the course. It’s one of Glasgow’s oldest races, up there with ‘Running from a Man with a Knife on Sauchiehall Street’ and ‘Sprinting Away if Someone Says Are You Looking At Me?’.
This year was unusual. It was dry in the run up to the race and it was forecast to be dry during it too. Maybe, perhaps, this would be the first time we would run it without getting wet? And, for the first two miles, we were dry. And then we ran through Dawsholm Park and there was huge perpetual puddle of mud and brown water squatting across the path. I suspect it doesn’t dry out until Summer. So, wet feet again.
The route was unchanged from previous years: two circuits of Glasgow University’s vet school and Dawsholm recycling centre and Dawsholm park. It’s not scenic but it is very well organised and attracts a sell out each year.
This year, after a couple of weeks of colds and coughs, I was expecting a harder run – and I was right. But not because of the colds and coughs. My chest felt okay and I felt reasonably strong throughout. However my left calf cramped and clenched as soon as I started running and didn’t relax until I was at 9km. The run became uncomfortable and each step felt like I was dragging my leg round the course.
Saying that, I was only 50 seconds slower than last year, when I thought I was running fine, so any slowness was more in my head than in my legs.
After the race there is a cracking buffet, which is not well known. Despite finishing half way up the field, Iain TwinBikeRun and I were the first people to get to the buffet. Maybe winners don’t eat cake?
My Year In Sport (Andrew)
Interesting comparison this year as 2024 was all about Celtman and 2025 was Celtman Solo Point Five, half the distance, and, looking at these stats: half the training!
31 Day Challenge (Andrew)
This year’s challenge – to take a photo every day – was harder than expected. How hard could it be? We all carry a camera in our phones and all it takes is a press of a button to take a photo. Job done.
However, after starting I thought that simply taking a photo was too easy. It wasn’t a challenge so I added some non-binding rules.
- I couldn’t use my phone. I had to use a camera.
- The photo had to relate in some way to the day. It couldn’t just be a random show of my breakfast. It could only be a shot of my breakfast if the breakfast was somehow ‘important’ that day.
And that made the challenge too hard as it meant I had to remember to carry a camera (which I often forgot!) and I had to justify my choice, which then made a photo challenge more of a writing challenge.
Anyway, what did I learn from this year’s challenge: I like grafitti, I like shapes in photos rather than people, and I take far too many photos of TwinBikeChild as, every day could have been a TwinBikeChild photoshow if she’d only sign the model consent release form and would get out of bed for less than £10,000 a day. Damn models!
But it was fun to do this challenge as it gave me a chance to remind myself why I like photography and to open my eyes when outside (as, if not, traffic can be a real challenge!)
31 Day Challenge: Day Thirty One
This year’s challenge: take a photo a day, every day for January.
31 January: 31 days of photos and only one was rubbish.
31 Day Challenge: Day Thirty
This year’s challenge: take a photo a day, every day for January.
30 January: Pay day. It’s been so long since I was paid in December that 20p could have bought me a a can of Diet Coke, a packet of crisps and a deposit for a 3 bedroom detached home in Bearsden.
Twin brothers swimming, cycling and running in Scotland 