TwinBikeRun cover photo montage of Andrew and Iain Todd

TwinBikeRun

Andrew and Iain Todd write about endurance sport, football and the everyday absurdity of life. Twin brothers, occasional triathletes, and authors of six books between them.

  • Nigel Barge 10K 2025 (Andrew)

    Back in 2016 I wrote a comprehensive report on the Nigel Barge 10k covering both its history and the course. This year, the weather was decent for January, and I had a chance to run it again without rain. That meant I could look up and around, without keeping my head down to avoid horizontal showers, and I could see the delights of… the Dawsholm Recycling Facility/rubbish tip.

    Despite falling between two of Glasgow’s nicest suburbs, this is not a pretty race. It’s two laps of Glasgow University’s vet school and a spot to dump used sofas. It’s also very lumpy with an undulating route, run twice over to two circular laps.

    Saying that, its a good race to start the year as it’s very well orgainised, has a good post race buffet and a strong (usually) sell out group of 400 runners.

  • Scurry to the sea half marathon

  • My 2025 Races (Andrew)

    Two ‘big races’ for this year.

    June

    Celtman Solo Point Five

    August

    The Reckless

    I’ve covered Celtman Solo before – see here and here – but The Reckless is a new event: an extreme triathlon with an off-road bike route. As it’s only a couple of hours away and takes places among a stunning part of the west coast I wanted to try it out. However, as I don’t have an off-road bike I might have to add ‘borrow bike’ to my important training goals!

  • I ran the Edinburgh tram route

  • TwinBikeRun Stats 2024 (Andrew)

    We have no expectation that anyone wants to read TwinBikeRun but it is ever so slightly annoying that last year we were just a couple of hundred views shy of 20,000. 🙂

    But, as even one view is much appreciated, we won’t complain… that much.

    The summer proved the most popular months for readers and we suspect that’s due to people wanting to find out more about open water swimming. In December there’s a lot less people googling “How do I get to the White Loch Glasgow”, unless they have an ice axe and the tolerance of a polar bear.

    And a big hello to our single reader from Greenland, who is probably the one person who would be looking for a swim in Glasgow in December as it would be warm compared to Greenland!

  • I ran a marathon to buy donuts | Was I successful?

  • My Year 2024 (Andrew)

    Plus 79 swims for 95,473m.

    This year it appears that Veloviewer has not only started charging £10 to view your infographic it has also dropped swimming so that it only shows running and cycling. Maybe next year they’ll charge a £20 option to get all your data?

  • 31 Days of… Lunch – Day Thirty One (plus two days) (Andrew)

    For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

    In 31 days of lunch I had to cover this, even though it didn’t happen in January.

    Today, I had afternoon tea.

    AKA lunch but, because the sandwiches don’t have crusts, it’s a tea and not a lunch. Even though I had it at lunchtime.

    I don’t understand the differences between Tea, High Tea and Afternoon Tea.

    Mrs TwinBikeRun tried to explain it to me.

    “You drink tea. You can do that anytime. Afternoon tea is a sandwich and a scone and a cake. You have that between lunch and dinner. High Tea is a cooked meal. And usually earlier than your dinner.,”

    Which sounds straightforward until today we went for Afternoon Tea at a hotel at… midday. Which made it lunch. I was having lunch. I was having a sandwich then a scone then a cake. But it was still lunch. Until I spotted the sandwiches were cut into rectangle fingers and didn’t have any crusts.

    “Afternoon tea is not lunch because you don’t eat crusts”, I said.

    “Not quite,” said Mrs TwinBikeRun but I interrupted before she could say more.

    “And a scone is not lunch,” I said, “and neither does it have a crust. And neither does a cake. Afternoon tea is just made up of things without crusts.”

    “What about rolls?” She said but I already knew the answer to that.

    “They’re nothing but crusts!”

    So, for my final entry in this challenge I have, after 31 days, finally learned something new: it’s not lunch if it doesn’t have a crust.

    Bread: But not crusts

    Ingredient: Various

    Taste: Like a breakthrough

  • I ran a marathon on a running track | 105 laps

  • 31 Days of… Lunch – Day Thirty One (Andrew)

    For the last three years I’ve used January to try and learn something new. Three years ago it was to try 31 days of exercise, two years ago it was 31 days of stretching, last year it was 31 days of learning to play the piano and this year it’s 31 days of… lunch.

    And done.

    Or not done as I’m going to swap this day 31 with Sunday day 33 as I’ve got an interesting lunch to discuss. So, consider this day 30 and a half and day 31 in full will follow on Sunday.

    What have I learned so far though?

    At first I was curious whether this would even work as a 31 day challenge. Lunch isn’t a challenge. It’s a routine. I would no more write about 31 days of going to the toilet (though there’s an idea!) than I would write about going to bed. Lunch is just lunch, isn’t it?

    What I’ve learned though is that by giving just a small bit of attention to something I rarely think about I have looked at lunch in a new way. I’ve enjoyed lunch more when I think more about it. Instead of eating something because that’s what I’ve always eaten, I’ve eaten new things, even if it’s just to add a chutney or to swap a roll for a bagel – and those small changes have a big increase in the pleasure I’ve taken from it.

    The second thing I’ve learned is that, without much effort, I’ve rarely repeated a lunch in 31 days. I used to think I had the same things each day. Now I know I do have a variety to what I eat and that it wasn’t difficult to eat something different each day for a month.

    Finally, I learned that having a vomiting bug in the middle of a food challenge is the ultimate irony and the universe must like a good laugh. That’s why next year I’m going to start my 31 day challenge of NOT gambling. That’s right, universe, I won’t win the lottery that month. No siree, not me. I want to gamble my life savings and not receive anything in return. So, universe, please don’t think it would be really funny for me to win £100m on the Euromillions during a no gambling month – that would totally ruin my challenge!

    Also, just as I finish, I spotted the following thread on Reddit by someone who could be my challenge nemesis – a man who has eaten the same sandwich every day for decades: https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/1id24iz/i_have_eaten_the_same_food_for_lunch_every_day/