Tuesday night was my running club’s annual 1 mile Club Championship. I’d only done one mile race in my life and it hurt. I turned up to the track unsure of whether I’d run or just watch, but before I’d fully decided I’d been handed a number.

I jogged a mile to warm up with my friend Laura and then we watched the first of the men’s races before lining up for the start of the women’s B race. There’s a lot of fast runners at our club. We’re not two of them. Our wave was for people running a 6:15 mile or slower. The last time I ran a mile was a couple of years ago and that was about 6:22. I’d run some 400m reps the day before and decided that this was not going to be bettered.

There was a great atmosphere at the track. The fastest waves went last which meant we were able to get our race over early and be cheered on by the rest of the club then watch them run their races. We set off at the sound of the starters pistol and ran four and a bit laps, with a bell to signal our last lap.

For the first three laps I led our race round the oval. I had no idea what pace I was running and had hoped that I’d be able to follow someone else who knew what they were doing. On the last lap another woman overtook me and stayed about 50m ahead of me.

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Picture: Laura Stewart

I crossed the line and looked down at my watch for the first time – 6:11. That was a bit of a surprise.

My mile PB had stood almost as long as my 10k PB, which I hoped to better on Sunday. It was three years since I’d got that PB running a 10k in a torrential downpour the day of the women’s Olympic marathon. I’ve run more marathons in my life than I have 10k races, and I’d made it a goal to do more short races and improve on this time over the summer as a way of getting back to some regular speed work.

The 10k I ran two weeks ago hadn’t been the one to do it, so I’d entered the Regent’s Park 10k again. I woke up on Sunday morning to rain and a forecast predicting a downpour. It was almost enough to make me head back to bed, but an hour later I was in the park with a number pinned to my chest again.

We ran three laps, passing the finish line and the timing clock each time. Some runners hate this race because of the laps, I like it. It helps with your pacing. On the second lap I was running near a man whose heavy breathing sounded more like another Sunday morning activity, which was really off-putting. I’d pull away from him on the slight uphills and he’d reappear on the downwards parts of the course. With 1 km to go I managed to pull away from him for good. Maybe his race climaxed too soon.

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I wanted to finish under 45 minutes but on the last 100m the clock told me this wasn’t going to happen. Still, I ran hard and finished in 45:16, a PB by 30 seconds – that’s 10 seconds per year, I’ll be a pro by the time I’m 60.

It’s been a while since I ran a race to better my time, especially a shorter race. This week I’ve done it twice. Times aren’t always important and they’re all relative, For me, though, these two times mean that I’m going into this marathon training cycle in good shape for me. Let’s hope I finish it in even better shape.