Mark is building up for a 112 mile cycle in Barcelona (imac images)

Mark Daly, 34, is BBC Scotland's Investigations Correspondent. This year he is taking up the Barcelona Challenge - Ironman distance triathlon. Follow his progress here.

By Mark Daly

Right, there are a few things I need to get off my chest about this triathlon training business. Firstly, I don't shave my legs. And secondly I don't use a heart rate monitor.

I can almost hear the more experienced racers amongst you chuckling already. When I signed up to the do the Barcelona Challenge, I knew I was going to have to make big sacrifices. But shaving my legs; must I?

I've already been warned that I'll be banished to the spare room by my wife if I attempt to get into to bed with prickly pins. But I must confess that when competing, I usually deem a successful race one in which I haven't been passed by anybody with hairy legs.

Few who are serious about triathlon have hirsute legs. So let's explore the reasons why they go for the silky smooth look. Professional triathletes and cyclists shave because a) the hair would hinder their daily massage; b) cuts from crashes heal better; and c) it just looks better.

Hmnm… To be honest, I reckon it's mostly c. I'm just not sure I'm good enough to be able to justify this emasculation.

The Ironman distance triathlon is not an event to take lightly. Swimming 2.4 miles, cycling 112 miles and running 26 miles can only be described as a certain type of lunacy. And I'm not sure having hairless pins is going to make the slightest bit of difference to the agony I'm going to have to endure to get round the course.

My friends who are also taking part in the Barcelona Challenge on 4 October have got all the latest gadgetry. A GPS watch to tell you exactly how far and fast you're going, cadence meters and heart rate monitors.

To be honest, it's hard enough doing this training without having to worry about all that stuff, then programming it into your computer and studying the results. I'm either going slow, steady or fast, for short, medium or long distances - it's not vey scientific I'll admit, but it seems to be working.

Mark will run a marathon after his swimming and cycling (imac images)

So let's hear from all you smooth legged, techno athletes out there. Am I am complete dinosaur or are there more of you who, like me, are stuck in a time warp?

Anyway, me and my hairy legs entered a couple of races last month. I was only just back from my honeymoon and a four-week lay-off but decided to compete in the Stirling sprint triathlon. Held at the impressive Stirling University swimming pool, it's one of the year's most popular events and always well over-subscribed.

The distances? Well, a trifling 750m, 20km cycle and 5km run. It doesn't sound much when compared to what lies ahead in October. I finished 45th out of 250, coming 12th in the swim, my strongest discipline. I came home in a time of 1 hour 15 minutes, only just behind the winner, who was local boy and two times UK Half Ironman champ, Fraser Cartmell. Okay, 17 minutes behind.

He has since taken pity on me and promised to give me a day's training. You'll hear all about that in my next piece - if I survive it.

Two weeks later and it was off to Ayr sprint triathlon. It's a fantastic event, very informal and well run by the extremely friendly Ayrodynamic Tri Club.

It's over the same distance as Stirling, but the swim was a different proposition - in the River Doon. It's not that easy to get open water training in Scotland which will replicate the lovely warm scenario that Barcelona promises, so diving into the Doon was a shocker. It was so cold I had to take to sprinting the first 100m just to feel my hands and feet again.

When I looked at the results later I was amazed and delighted to see that I was seventh out of 85 coming out the water onto the bike. But as usual for me, the first 10k on the bike leg was a misery. I just never seem to have any power in my legs for the first 15 or 20 minutes off the back of the swim. So I was quickly passed by about a dozen bikes. And before you ask, yes, they all had shaved legs.

Mark keeps his hairy legs under wraps during his strongest discipline (imac images)

However, I found my feet on the run and managed a 20 min 5km run leg (although I have a sneaky suspicion the run might have been a bit short - but let's not dwell on that) to finish 15th in a time of 1.14.

Since then, my training has gone well. I'm averaging about eight sessions a week lasting between 10 and 14 hours. I bought a new bike, which is a fantastic (but fantastically expensive) way to spark extra dynamism when it comes to training.

Although there was a slight hiccup last week when everybody in the office decided to email me excerpts of the revelatory media coverage about cyclists having low sperm counts.

This was closely followed by a panicked phone call from my new wife on the same topic. But apparently only those doing 180 miles per week or more are in danger. No problems there then.

So, a couple of races and six weeks further down the line, I'm starting to feel that actually getting round this mammoth course in Barcelona is a possibility. But the longest session I've done so far is five hours, and my target time for the big race is about 12 hours.

So much work still to do, and only twelve weeks to go - it's time to up the ante.

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