Going to the toilet is something we tend to do privately. It’s our own we world of wee where we can sit and think and generally take a break from the world for a moment of two.

But not runners and triathletes. Oh no, not us. We have to turn the toilet break into something competitive. It becomes a race and we’re no longer alone, we might not know it, but we’re under scrutiny.

Next time you’re at a race think about what you do at the start. You probably stretch, you probably get changed, you probably realise you forgot some drawing pins to hold up your number and you try and find some at registration – and you go to the toilet.

Sometimes, that’ll be a row of portaloos. At other times, a toilet in the gym or school or, as at the Alloa half marathon, the local Asda.

You’ve got to go before you go and it doesn’t matter where because you don’t want to Radcliffe it in the middle of a race.

(If you don’t want to know what a Radcliffe is then don’t Google Paula Radcliffe and the 2005 London marathon. Eeuugghh!).

But when you go before you go you always find that everyone else has had the same idea. There’s a queue. A long queue – and that’s when it gets competitive.

Frankly, some people take too long. They know there’s a queue, they’ve been in it themselves for the last 10 minutes, yet, when it gets to the bog they don’t just pee and go. They take their time. They relax. They forget that everyone else is waiting – and listening!

Because you can’t help but listen. You want to hear the rustle of short or trousers being pulled up. The bang of a toilet roll being torn. The scraping back of a the lock so that you can then take your turn as….

… you realise everyone is listening to you. They’re desperate. They’ve been waiting for ages, crossed legged, hopping foot to foot and they just want to hear you tinkle, stand up, unlock and leave.

So, you want to be the fastest. You want to be someone who’ll walk out almost as soon as they walked in. You want the imagined high fives (after you’ve washed your hands, of course) as you pass back along the queue as everyone respects the fact you didn’t keep them waiting. You were in an out. A toilet god. The Uisean Bolt of urination.

Going to the toilet is no longer something we do privately. It’s a competition and you want to win!

There should be gold medals, their really should.

Good news and bad news from Billy Bilsland’s crack team of bike mechanics and life support unit. The bad news is that my race bike is gubbed. The good news is that my frame had a six year warranty I knew nothing about and the manufacturer will replace it for free. Woo hoo (tinged with sadness)!

I say sadness because while I’m glad I don’t have to buy a new bike I am sad to see my old bike go – though not completely. The wheels, handlebars, seat and components will be stripped and swapped to the new frame,  which sounds look a good idea – but then I start thinking it’s the bike equivalent of swapping one girl for her younger sister and then telling her to wear her older sister’s clothes before you take her for a ride.

It’ll be strange, I think, to see my new/old bike. It’ll be the same bike, the same model, but also not the same. Will it be an identical twin and I won’t notice the difference? Or will it be Danny Devito’s twin to Arnold Schwarzenegger? I’ll find out this week as I should get a call any day to tell me it’s ready to collect.

Every runner has got changed in a toilet cubicle. The toilet cubicle is to runners what telephone boxes are to Superman. And, just like Superman, we come out with our pants on wrong.

Changing in a cubicle is difficult. Not only do you have to get legs and arms out of jeans and jumpers, you have to do all that without touching the floor. Or at least any part of the floor that doesn’t look scrupulously clean.

You do the ‘wee wee’ dance. Jigging on the spot, swapping one foot and another on the one bit of the floor that’s dry.

Or you stand on your shoes. Using your shoes as a barrier between you and the ‘flood’.

And you do all that while trying to pack clothes away and take out your t-shirt and shorts without dropping them – or even let them touch! – on the toilet or the floor.

It should be an Olympic sport – toilet changing. It has all the contortions of gymnastics and the high beam with all the danger of the swimming pool, another place with lots of wee.

I was thinking about the problems with changing in the toilet this week as… well…  I had problems changing in the toilet.

I’d walked Barney the dog at Whitelee wind farm. My wife was driving home and I thought it would be fun to run the 10 miles back. It’s almost all downhill so it’s a good long easy run.

First, I would have to get changed. So, I popped into the toilets at the vistor’s centre next to the wind farm.

As I was getting changed, a father and son came in. They went into the cubicle next to me. I could hear the father tell his son it was time for a “big boy toilet” and I sincerely hoped his son was a small child and not a fully grown man or this could get really awkward.

I tried not to listen. But they were loud and I could hear the father talk his son through using the toilet. I kept changing, doing the ‘wee wee’ dance before, almost ready, I hit my elbow on the toilet roll holder. It was loose and it had three toilet rolls on it. One active, two spare.

A roll fell.

And rolled.

And disappeared into the cubicle next door.

The son said loudly: “Daddy, should we return it?”

The father said “Yes, in a second”.

And I said nothing.

What could I say? If I said I didn’t need it they might wander why not. What kind of weirdo goes into a toilet and doesn’t need something to wipe? I could offer an explanation. But I didn’t think this was the time to go into the merits of toilet changing. So, instead, I said nothing

Because saying nothing is less awkward than saying something.

Because there’s nothing less awkward than a silent man. In a toilet cubicle. When everyone knows he’s there.

I had do to something. I had to… I know… get changed really, really quickly and leave before they got out! So quickly that –

– BANG!

I hit my shoulder off the cubicle wall. And, worse, my foot had slipped, and I’d touched the floor.

“F**K!”

Silence.

Awful silence.

Now, not only had I lost my roll, I was now banging savagely on the walls and screaming obscenities.

I did the only thing I could do.

I stood absolutely stock still until I heard the door open, the toilet flush, the taps run and I was absolutely sure they’d left.

Then I waited five minutes more.

It was the least awkward thing to do.

“Hello.”

“Is that Andrew?”

“Yes.”

“This is the man from the bike shop.”

“Hello.”

“I just wanted to let you know…”

My bike was ready to be picked up. My good bike. My race steed. My carbon fibre beauty that only needs a new chain, some lube and a little servicing and love after hibernating over Winter and now preparing to face the sunny promise of Spring?

“… we’ve found a crack.”

“As in the drug?”

“As in your frame.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

“We’re going to phone the manufacturer and we’ll let you know next week what we can do next.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

“Mr Todd , are you still there?”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, NOT MY BIKE!

[To be continued]