Today I ran at Pitshanger Junior parkrun. I was really excited because I hadn’t run there for a few weeks, and it’s my favourite junior parkrun course. The distance is 2 km, and my personal best before today was seven minutes and forty-seven seconds. My aim was to beat that time and hopefully run faster than ever before. I woke up feeling determined and ready to give it everything I had.
When we arrived, I noticed straight away that there were so many children. Normally there are around 70 or 80 runners, but today it felt like at least double that number. Later, I found out there were actually over 150 children taking part, which made it one of the busiest junior parkruns I’ve seen. This made me even more determined to get a good start, because I knew it would be harder to get a good position in such a big field.
The conditions were pretty good for running. It was a little bit cold but dry, and the ground was fine to run on. When the whistle went and the race began, I got off to a really strong start. In fact, I even got ahead of my brother, which doesn’t usually happen, and that gave me a big boost. I kept pushing hard, and I felt strong. My plan was to reach halfway, which is the end of the first lap, in around three minutes and fifty seconds. That would give me a good chance of breaking my personal best.
I focused and worked as hard as I could, and when I reached the halfway point, I checked my watch and saw that I was right on target — three minutes and fifty seconds exactly. This made me feel confident, and I knew I had a good chance of getting a personal best if I could hold the pace. At this point, I was in fourth place, and I could hear my dad cheering me on, telling me to chase the runner in third. That encouraged me to keep pushing harder and not give up.
As I ran the second lap, I gave it everything I had left. I sprinted down the finishing straight, legs burning but heart racing with excitement, and I crossed the line in fourth place. The best part was that I had done it — I had run a new personal best of seven minutes and forty-four seconds, three seconds faster than my old best time. I was absolutely over the moon with that result. I also got an age grading of 82%, which made me feel really proud.
Later on, I found out two things that made the result even better. First, there were more than 150 runners in total, so finishing fourth was a huge achievement. Second, I discovered I was the first girl home out of about 80 girls taking part. I was so proud of that. To be only nine years old, racing in an event for under-14s, and still finishing fourth overall and first girl is a big achievement. I know there’s still room to improve, and next time I want to try and break seven minutes and forty seconds, maybe even get close to seven minutes thirty. But for today, I was really happy — I had worked hard, beaten my personal best, and achieved something I will remember for a long time.
