The mile. An evocative running distance etched into our psyche thanks to Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister and his successful attempt to run the first sub-4 minute mile.
The distance is making a comeback and a highly trained group of Eagles mustered themselves at Lammas Park to take part in a club relay competition. We had been split into 3 pace bands based on our parkrun recorded 5k PB and 10 team captains taken from the fastest 10 runners took it in turns to randomly draw names from the other groups.
Each team consisted of 3 runners and I was placed into the middle group based on my sub-22 minute parkrun best. My team looked like it had a fighting chance in the competition thanks to a sub-3 hour marathon PB taking on the glory leg. Each team had to lead off with their slowest runner and off they duly ran, clutching onto their batons.
It did not seem long before my teammate passed me the baton and I was racing around the park as fast as my little legs would carry me while my lungs continued to draw oxygen into my body. Before the race I predicted a 6 minute 50 second mile time and I was pretty much bang on as I handed over our baton for the last time. Unfortunately I had been passed by a couple of runners close to the end and there was just too much distance for our speedy finisher to catchup on.
We took a respectable second place overall before everyone headed down to the pub for some post race banter. A top night of racing and socializing and I am already looking forward to the next fixture sometime in the near future.
