Iain has everything ready in transition. I use a towel DryRobe to strip and change and he passes gels and food for me to eat. The sun has started to peek out from behind clouds so it’s a bright, warm-ish, and clammy start to the day. There’s no wind and, thankfully, no early morning midges. Around us, other athletes arrive and leave. Bikes are pushed along. Towels handed out. I don’t see anyone shivering. Everything seems focused and orderly.

“What’s the time?” I ask. 

And I am told it’s 620. The swim was one hour and 15 minutes, which I’m happy about. I wanted to finish the swim and be leaving transition by 630 and it looks like I’ll do that.

“Do you want the short shorts or the long shorts? Long top or short?”

“Everything,” I say.

Although I don’t feel cold, I’m wary of ‘the drop’. This is when the warm blood in your body returns from your core and your core temperature drops. When you swim in cold water, your body protects itself by keeping your core warm. It reverses that when you start to heat up and you can feel your temperature drop. 

I wear bib shorts with full tights, a base layer tshirt, a lined long sleeve top, a gillet and bike shoes with rubber waterproof boots. With temperatures predicted to be above 15 degrees even this early in the morning, I suspect this may be too much, but, just with the swim, I’d rather be too warm than too cold. 

Iain has some milk and I drink that instead of water. It’s great to start the day with a different taste and it makes it feel more like I’m having breakfast than just eating for fuelling. It would almost be civilised, but no one eats breakfast wearing cleats. 

I’m ready to go in 15 minutes and to start as planned at 630. 

“Dobber?” I check with Iain. 

“Yes, you are.”

“GPS” I ask. 

“In your pocket.”

And I’m ready to go. I put on my helmet, take the bike from the rack and walk to the end of transistion and the line on the road that marks the point I can mount my bike. 

“Ready,” I say.

Mounting up. Getting set. Clicking feet into the pedals. And then – 

– I wobble. I can’t get my feet out. And I fall over to the left and bang my elbow and shoulder on the ground. The words of the organisers drift through my head:

“Only a moron doesn’t start in the lowest gear.”

There’s a short steep road leading out of Sheildag. The organisers had warned beforehand about making sure to start in an easy gear to get up the hill. I thought I had but, with this only being my second outdoor ride, this year, I’d got that completed wrong. My instincts kicked in and tried ot change the gear only to hear the chain slip, my feet remained locked in the pedals and, before you can say “this is a terrible song by Pitbull”, it was timber.

As I fell I could only think about landing on my shoulder and not putting my hand out. I didn’t want to break a wrist to start my bike leg. As I bouced on the ground, my water bottle bounced out and rolled away, but thankfully I didn’t serious injure myself. Even was okay, except my dignity as just two seconds beforehand the presenter of BBC Scotland’s Adventure Show had said “good luck, Andrew, you’ll smash it!”, proving that (a) he didn’t know me, (b) he could read my name on my number bib; and (c) he was a nice man who just wanted to genuinely wish me well. At least he wasn’t filming me leave, I thought. 

“I got that on camera,” said Iain.

Damn.

Is it possible to get lost running a route you’ve run hundred time before? Yes, if it’s been four years since you last run it.

I was working in our Larbert office today and I decided to run a route that I’d run since before the covid lockdown in March 2020. It used to be one of my regular lunch time routes, a run from the office at the edge of Larbert to the ruins of Torwood Castle, a couple of miles away and on the crest of a small hill overlooking Larbert and Torwood. 

As I ran I started to spot subtle changes like the additional cabins in the ground of the Glenbervie Hotel, the new gravel on a woodland track and the , blimey, where did they come from new housing developments of flats and massive five bedroom homes. They weren’t their last time?!?

It was only then that I realised how long it had been since I last ran this route and that lockdown timetravel, the ability to forgot everything that happening in the pandemic and assume time jumped instantly from March 2020 to March 2022, was in full effect. I hadn’t just run this route yesterday, it was a pandemic, a three-year-old daughter and a lifetime away. It was no longer the same route.