As a novice triathlete I am having great fun getting to grips with swimming, cycling and running and one of the great questions is when do you get rid of the excess body hair?

Now I’m no gorilla but do have a fair thatch of hair on my chest. My first few try were all pool based so no real problems however I did question the chest streamlining issue but it was always an excuse for being slow.

So last year I signed up for my first open water triathlon, 1.5k swimming in a cold lake followed by 26k on the bike and a 10k run. I squeezed into a mates second hand wetsuit, jumped into the murky water and with a mix of front crawl and breast stroke survived the swim.

I hauled myself out of the lake and started to stagger to my bike. I pulled down the front zip on my wetsuit and found myself in blinding agony.

Before the race I had slowly put my wetsuit on and had inadvertently platted a few hundred chest hairs into the zip, which when I pulled it down ripped out a one inch wide vertical line of hairs down to near my groin.

To say my eyes were watering was an understatement, but I ran to my bike, put on my t-shirt and barreled off on the bike.

A while later I completed the bike section and prepared for the run only to be stopped by a nice lady from St Johns Ambulance who was really concerned that there was a wet bloody line down the front of my shirt.

After some discussion and a bit of a laugh she let me carry on and I finished about half way through the field.

Since then I have religiously shaved my chest before a race and bought a proper wetsuit, I’ve got faster but this shaving is a real faff.

By Pete