The Meteor Mile 2025 (Club record?)

The Meteor Mile is an annual mile race on the runway of Gloucestershire Airport. Organised by Almost Athletes running club, it takes place on the last Friday evening of the summer. Open to all ages, it attracts elite runners, club runners and fun runners alike. This year, 10 members of my family took part, ranging from age 10 to age 80!

The Meteor Mile is part of our club’s road race series. And I’ve been worrying about it for months.

Back in May, I ran the Bourton Mile. I unexpectedly ran a club record of 6:19 (the club record for LV50 was 6:20). But the race was supposed to be chip timed and the chip timing failed, so our times were the gun time. My gun time was 6:25, so no club record. Could I repeat my performance and get a club record at Meteor Mile?

The downside of Meteor Mile? It’s all gun timed!

So I’d been overthinking this for months. I’d told way too many people about the failed gun time at Bourton and my intention to break the club record. But could I make it happen?

The Meteor Mile starts at 8pm, but runners have to arrive much earlier because of it being an airport and everyone having to move airside together. I was worried there wouldn’t be enough parking, so we had five of us in one car. But parking was on a field next to the airport with lots of helpful volunteers to guide us.

Registration was inside the terminal building. This year, we had ankle tags for our timing chips.

The toilets were the toilets in the terminal. There were only two cubicles for the ladies, but the queue moved pretty quickly.

At about 7:15pm, we all moved outside the terminal building airside. We had a run briefing, then at about 7:30 we all started on the mile walk/ jog to the start line, following behind the airport car. This is up the taxiing route, rather than the runway itself. My husband, son’s girlfriend and I had decided to use the mile as a warm-up. We jogged the first half a mile, then did warm up drills for the second half a mile.

After all those months of overthinking this race, I felt quite relaxed that the Meteor Mile was finally happening.

I knew that if I was going to break that club record, I had to be right on the start line, with the elite runners. Luckily the start line is very wide and I was right on the edge, so nobody noticed or cared that I was there. My son’s girlfriend was next to me on the line and my husband was immediately behind me. My son’s girlfriend was aiming to be first female for our club and my husband was hoping for sub-6 minutes. He ran that last year, but didn’t feel he was as fit this year.

The race starts on the taxiing road. It’s about 300m on that, then just over a kilometre on the runway, then a 200m curve round to the finish line outside the terminal building.

The start was very quiet with no gun or even whistle. With 30 seconds to the start, the starter ran back to the airport car. He held up all his fingers to indicate 10 seconds to start, five fingers to indicate five seconds to start, then he put his arm down for go.

And we were off! I was literally sprinting. My watch showed my fastest pace was actually 4:34 minute/ mile.

It didn’t take me long to remember that I’m not an elite runner and I wasn’t supposed to be running at the same pace as them and I needed to slow down.

Lots of people overtook me. That was fine. I was only on the front line to get my record, not to come anywhere near ‘winning’.

It seemed to take a long time to get round the bend to the main runway, but then I’d run half a mile before I knew it. I was letting my pace gradually dip. The good thing about running a mile is that the average pace it shows on your watch will be the actual time you finish in.

I was ahead of my target pace and I was suffering.

I’d never heard my own breathing like that. I was literally gasping for breath.

I could do it. I couldn’t do it.

If I got 6:20, would my name go on the record as an equal record holder?

My pace dipped down to 6:20 and stayed there for a bit.

No, that wasn’t good enough. I needed to get under that.

I could see people crossing the finish line in the distance. When you run down a runway, you see everything in the distance.

I was still breathing horribly, but I managed to get a little bit faster for the end.

I crossed the line in 6:17! It was a long wait until the official results, but I was happy with a three second margin. That had to be a club record.

All runners got a medal at the end and there was plenty of water in reusable cups. Prizes were awarded for first male and female juniors (aged up to 14), first three male and female runners and first male and female runners from Almost Athletes.

My husband and son’s girlfriend both achieved their aim and the rest of my family did well too. Most importantly, they all enjoyed it. I think we will all be back next year.

I was buzzing all evening and still buzzing the next morning about how well the race had gone.

The results didn’t come out until very late on Saturday. We’d had an email earlier in the evening saying a small number of tags hadn’t registered across the finish, so a little work was needed to fill the odd gap.

MY RESULT SAID 6:20. If my watch had show 6:19 and the results had said 6:20, I would have believed it. But I really didn’t believe 6:20. The guy who crossed the line at the same time as me and was also given 6:20 believed he’d run 6:17 too. I asked for my result to be checked.

I felt very deflated and disappointed. I felt I’d been robbed of the club record twice thanks to technology failures.

Finally, on Monday evening, my time was given as 6:19. I’d got a club record! Will I try to beat it next year? Who knows?!