Nowadays I run a half-marathon every weekend, and I do just about enough weight-lifting during the week to maintain what muscle I have. It's unlikely I'll ever go on cycle again.

I have a friend at the gym who is talking about doing his first cycle. His father died of a heart attack at 53. I told him he better get a full blood count done before making any decisions.

Today he showed me the results. Cholesterol is high but nothing crazy that can't be fixed within a year. The thickness of his blood though, his haematocrit, is high at 57. I told him that that number is just going to creep higher and higher if he takes T. As that number creeps up, so will his blood pressure, causing kidney trouble and perhaps eventually a stroke.

He's already made his purchases and he's going ahead with it so I just told him: Please go and donate a pint of blood before you start your cycle.

To be honest though, I think he could do with giving blood twice. He could go donate, wait three days, and then go donate again. Maybe take an iron supplement while on cycle.

Have any of you donated blood twice in one week? He needs to get that haematocrit value way way down because it's just going to start creeping up and up and up.

Oh yeah I forgot one detail: It's his first cycle and he's taking Tren. I can't talk him out of it, I tried and he just won't listen. I told him he might murder his next door neighbour but he won't listen.