As an example, I vividly remember getting towards the end of the training programme I did for my very first Ironman in Canada and I was sitting in my friend Steve Hundal’s back garden having just got back from a six-hour bike ride with him. By now I was so thin I could have got a tan by slotting my face into a toaster, and one of Steve’s relations told me she thought I looked ill, whereupon Steve announced: ‘That means you’re ready!’ 2. I will generally cycle so many miles on my ride to work, with the wind blowing in my remaining hair, that the hush that descends over the office as I walk in isn’t awe-inspired respect, it’s my workmates holding their breath. And no wonder because my body odour can now bring down a camel at 50 paces. And this is despite my washing machine being in permanent use trying to keep my kit clean. In fact, if the scientists in Cern want to see something that travels at a million miles an hour they should scrap the Large Hadron Collider and just come and watch my electricity meter.
