I vividly remember my first ever race in 2008. It was the Adidas Women’s 5K event in Hyde Park. I had chosen to fundraise for St Christopher’s Hospice, as they looked after my mum before she passed away from a short battle against lung cancer. Given I wasn’t really a fan of running when I was at school, it didn’t seem to deter me from the challenge at hand. I finished the race but not before spectacularly hitting the wall about 2km in and so ended up having to walk for a bit. What I hadn’t mastered at the time was how to pace myself sensibly. Instead, as is with my usual sporty competitive nature, I just wanted to go 100 miles per hour. I now realise that although it hurt at the time it was a necessary step in my running journey in learning what to do and what not to do for a race situation.

Fast forward to June 2018 and my experience of running had progressed to distances measuring anything from 5K to marathon and everything in between. One week a friend, who was part of the core team of our local parkrun, asked if I was interested in pacing. Up until this point I was aware of the existence of pacers at a handful of races I had participated in. Also, when watching major running events on track or road, such as the London Marathon, pacemakers were typically athletic looking men in both the men’s and women’s events. I don’t think I had seen many, if any, female pacers. I was nervous but agreed to helping my friend out and gave it a go. Being new to it I made sure to put in a couple of dry runs before hand to help settle my nerves. I ended up loving it and have volunteered in this capacity almost 20 times now in my favourite 35 minute slot. It doesn’t always go smoothly, as attendance numbers at parkrun vary week to week meaning some days it can be busy. But with that unpredictability it teaches you skills, such as planning on your feet when getting boxed in or at a bottleneck, maths (oddly a subject I wasn’t a fan of at school but it has crept into my running with regards to working out distance conversions and splits) and communication (reassuring the runners who are with you, identifying hazards because you can sometimes be in a big group so you want to make sure nobody gets injured, and giving updates on things like times and pace).

Later that same year I made my first steps into official race pacing at the sadly now defunct Rockingham 10 miler. It was special because I got to be a part of the pace team along with some of my friends from the running community, who are experienced pacers in their own right. Their advice and support on the day was really appreciated. It was also quite fun running on a racing circuit. Since then I have also paced 10Ks and Half Marathons in Wales, South West and South East England. Most have been successful in terms of coming in on time and getting people to personal bests. One went disastrously wrong early on because of the course conditions. But it just serves to remind me that pacers are human after all and race day doesn’t always go to plan. This was all the more pertinent when it happened to a fellow pacer at another race a few weeks previously, who reached out to me saying the exact same thing about pacers being human that I had said to him. There was one event where I was the only female pacer because of injuries and dropouts. It didn’t bother me because I was in the company of my running friends and the main focus was on getting runners from the start line to the finish line in one piece.

So what’s next for me? I’m very excited to be pacing 2 hour 30mins at the London Landmarks Half Marathon at the end of March. This will be the biggest event I will be involved with. The nerves never truly go away for me regardless of how long I have been running now. But at the same time I really can’t wait to get stuck in. There’s also talk that there could be an all-female pace team at a race later in the year. I would love to get involved with this. But also it would be great to see as many experienced and new female pacers interested to the point there is a big waiting list as well for it. Let’s wait and see.

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