“Come on Chaser” I called out to the woman from another London club who’d started to walk ahead of me on a hill. “We can’t let these other clubs beat us on our home turf!” She began running again and we shared a smile.

We were into the last mile of the South of England Cross Country Championships on Parliament Hill. 574 women raced through the mud and up hills on Hampstead Heath, most of them ahead of me (I finished 423rd), and despite its grand title, it’s a friendly, inclusive race.

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Josie, me, Laura S

Before the start, runners searched the bottom of their bags to scrape together spare safety pins for those without, they allayed each other’s fears about the terrain and reassured each other that it didn’t matter if they came last. Because it didn’t, we’d showed up in shorts on a January day to run through mud, we were already winning.

After the gun fired, the field charged from the line straight up Parliament Hill. I’ve seen the photos of us swarming up the hill and it’s an amazing sight. But it was a more spectacular view from within the back of that field – a sea of heads bobbing away stretched up in front of me. I took a few quick looks in between looking down at the meters directly in front of me.

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The rage in recent years has been towards mindfulness and staying present in the moment. If you’ve liked the sound of this but struggled with putting it into practice, I’d urge you to race cross country. You’ve no time to worry about the bigger of life’s problems when every thought is concentrated on staying upright as you skid round a corner, down a hill or navigate ankle-deep mud.

There were moments of respite, when the terrain allowed conversations with runners I know before the next hill separated us again. But for the most I ran in a bubble, aware only of the runner directly beside or ahead of me and identifying friends spectating by the sound of their voice alone.

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The last downhill section is a good time to stretch out the legs and focus purely on the finish line. I overtook a few runners in the last quarter mile as my legs windmilled below me barely within my control.

At the finish I met a woman who’d listened to my cross country podcast and asked whether my friend Josie had come along. “She’s right behind you” I said before Josie chimed in with “I loved it!” And so did I.