If you think a layer is where James Bond gets captured, then this post is for you. I don’t understand layers. I understand keeping warm and keeping dry. I’m Scottish, keeping warm and keeping dry are  basic life skills in Glasgow. But layering is different. It suggests that if you wear the right amount of clothes then you’ll reach an optimum temperature where you are neither too warm or too cold. That’s just crazy talk. There’s no such thing as too warm. You can always be warmer in Scotland.

The Scots must be the only people in the world who invented a hot drink in one of the world’s hottest regions. Darjeeling in India is famous for its tea. But Darjeeling tea plantations were created in the 18th century, in part by a Scotsman, as it could only be a Scot who’d think that a country where the temperature routinely hits the mid 30s was missing a boiling  cup of water.

However, if you read running magazines and look on-line you’ll find hundreds of products that claim to wick away sweat (where does it go?), helps your body breathe (my mouth does that) while wrapping it in the finest merino (didn’t he manage Chelsea?) wool.

I don’t believe in any of that. At least not in Winter. In Winter you need to keep warm and the only way to do that is to cover your body in the most inefficient man made fibres known to man.  When I go running I want to come back, strip off and feel like I’ve just experienced a tropical storm in a sleeping bag. I want to feel like my clothes need a tumble dry before I wash them. In short, the cheaper the t-shirt the better it is for winter running. Too hot? There’s no such thing.

That’s why I want to sing the praise of Decathlon. For £2.99 they produce the finest (worst) base layer known to man. It doesn’t breathe. It doesn’t wick.  It barely fits (buy a size bigger than you think). It’s useless at keeping you cool – but it’s perfect at keeping you warm.

I have five.

I changed gyms this week. For the last year I’ve been going to a private gym a couple of minutes from the house. I like it. I’d been a member before and had rejoined last year when I moved house. It had plenty of machines, a swimming pool and, extravagantly, it had not one but two Jacuzzis.

No one has two Jacuzzis, not even the dictionary, as it’s currently telling me that Jacuzzi is okay but adding an ‘s’ on the end is a crime against English.

But, almost 12 months later, I realised something. The gym was three minutes drive past my house. No time at all – but, when driving home, it might as well have been in Timbuktoo. No one wants to keep going when they see their home. You want to put your feet up, switch on the telly and have a bit of toast. You don’t want to keep driving and work out for an hour. Not when you can have toast. (I love toast.)

Instead, I’ve changed gyms. I wasn’t going to that gym and I knew that I would be far more likely not to be tempted by toast if I switched to a gym that was on my route home, rather than after it.

So, on Wednesday I swapped to Glasgow Club, the council run gyms. I pass two on the way home: Tollcross International for swimming and Emirates arena for everything else. I have access to a 50m pool, the velodrome and a modern gym (which I rarely use, but its nice to know its there if the weather’s foul).

It has everything I could ask for – except an excuse for toast.

Oh, and two jacuzzis. But no one need that.

Last night was my last game of football.

I’ve said this before. You can read how successful my previous retirements were in this blog post. But, last night, was definitely my last game. (Maybe).

This time it helps that our five-a-side booking had finished. We had a block booking until the end of March and, as previous years have shown, once the clocks change we lose players to light nights and golf courses. March is a good time to end the booking.

Even if I wanted to play next week, I couldn’t. Well, I could, but it would involve me hanging round pitches pretending to be 14 and begging people to “gonnae gie us a game, mista!”. I think I may be too old to do that. At 14 it shows that you’re keen to play. At 38 it shows you want to hang around with 14 year olds. It’s a bit of a different look…

My last game was meant to be an Old Guys vs Young Guys match. Old guys being anyone over 30. Unfortunately, five of the seven ‘Old Guys’ pulled out due to various injuries including “my feet are buggered after wearing high heels all day*”, which is not an excuse you often get before a game of football. Well, mens football anyway. I imagine female football players are more prone to this than Wayne Rooney.

*A stag do was involved.

Instead, the game became a normal game of fives, and an anti-climatic end to my football career. I thought I was finishing on a ‘cup final’, instead it was just a cold Wednesday night in Falkirk in an industrial shed with a leaky roof. My last game. Definitely. (Probably).

This Sunday is the Balloch to Clydebank half-marathon, one of my favourite races. It starts beside a shopping centre, dodges through the grimier parts of Alexandria, weaves through the back of Dumbarton train station before finishing with the bookies, chippies, an industrial estate and a car park in Clydebank. It must be the only race that starts with one of Scotland’s most beautiful spots – Loch Lomond – and immediately turns its back on it and runs as far away from it as it can.

I love this race though for one reason – for almost all of the 13 miles it feels like you’re running downhill. You can’t ask for a better start to the year, even if you couldn’t find a less welcoming finish.

What you also can’t ask for is dry weather. I don’t think I’ve ever run this race without it raining. Once it was even snowing (the race was cancelled). This year however it looks like we’ll finally have a dry day, at least if the weather reports are accurate. So far I’ve checked BBC Weather, the Weather App, The Met Office and checked them again an hour later in case its changed.

Even though there’s nothing we can do about the weather I think runners and cyclists like to check it constantly anyway just in case it might rain. I think its so that when we get to the start line we can say “I told you it would rain” and look smugly at those who’ve just turned up in singlets and goosebumps. We, on the other hand, are dressed in the latest Gore-tex bin bag. We have waterproof socks. Some of us even have caps (though not anyone who has any dignity or self-respect). We’re prepared. And then we overheat and wish we hadn’t brought all this kit…. but at least we were right! It did rain.

But not this year. This year the Balloch to Clydebank half-marathon will be dry. Unless the weather’s changed in the last hour. I’d better check.

“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.