I have never run a one mile race before. During the early days of the pandemic I’d use Saturday mornings each week as a chance to run a mile as fast as I possibly could, but have not done that since then. My speed work had dropped off after that, and I’ve slowed down considerably over the last couple of years. Two weeks after running a marathon, could I set a 1mile PB?

One week after the marathon I tried running a mile to see how I was recovering, and how rusty my speedwork is. It wasn't pretty. My fastest ever mile according to Garmin Connect is 5m 27sec. So at least anything close to that would be okay.

We arrived in Green Park about an hour before the race start, and I used some of this time for a nice easy 0.5 mile warm-up. When the time came, I followed the path past Buckingham Palace onto The Mall, and found my way to the pen. There was quite a mixture of runners, and I don’t think we were really lining up by pace which maybe isn’t the best when it’s only a mile race.

Sound bites of Chariots of Fire played, and the countdown begun. As I crossed the start line I moved into whatever spaces I could find so I could accelerate up to speed as soon as possible.

Turning onto Horse Guards Road everything seemed to be going okay so far, but that quickly changed. I’d definitely gone too quickly once I’d found space, and was paying the price now. I slowed down a little but that wasn’t enough, so walked briefly and then got going again at a slightly slower pace until I had to walk again briefly on Birdcage Walk. It felt ridiculous that I was needing to do this.

It wasn’t long before I could see the finish line was on Spur Road. It wasn’t far to go so I kept on pushing, and then sprinted the last little bit to cross the line in 06:05 in position 107 or 499 finishers for the adult waves. It was so slow for me. However, it was still faster than when I did a 1 mile test a week ago, a week after having done a marathon.

I waited in the finisher area for Carmen, knowing she’d be about six or seven minutes behind me. When she crossed the finish line I’d already recovered from the run, and wished I could have another go already. Perhaps that would be something to try next year, with better preparation for it.