Washing up in the Ford factory canteen in Dagenham.

At King’s College hospital when I was 16; the job was putting hundreds of pieces of A4 paper into A4 transparent envelopes. I lasted one day.

Laying down slabs for the council.

Digging foundations in the freezing-cold Chicago winters.

Jason Queally, a former teammate. He is older than me and was Olympic champion in Sydney. The way he mentored me, even though he knew I would be a rival, was amazing.

Those lactate sessions were the worst. I'd be in a lab on a turbo trainer and I'd do four 30-second efforts at 100% effort. It sounds so innocuous but the difference between 99% and 100% is huge. You can finish at 99% and you'll be hurting but if you push a tiny bit more – and that's the bit that makes the difference to your training – your legs just grind to a halt. It's like your engine is seizing up. My coach would unclip my feet and pull my leg over the saddle so I could just slide off onto a mat and curl up in a ball.

The London terror attack on 7/7 in 2005. I was in London the day before for the Olympic bid. When we won I thought, “I should stay over – it will be a great party tonight.” But I decided to go back to Manchester for training. Bombs went off on what would have been my route to the station.

Max Levy, a German sprint cyclist who came second behind me a lot.

A road track car, a Porsche GT3. I’ve done the 24-hour race in Le Mans, which was a dream come true.

I just like to get to the start line knowing there was nothing else I could have done, that there wasn't a single session I didn't give 100 per cent. The physical certainty means you can relax mentally and let the performance come.