The Bourton mile 2026

I recently ran the Bourton mile in Bourton-on-the-Water, which is part of the Gloucestershire AAA road race series. (I won my age category in the series last year and was keen to see if I could do it again.)

I was nervous about the Bourton mile, which is organised by Bourton Road Runners. It was just under three weeks after Newport marathon and my recovery had been much slower this time. My legs were very still very uncomfortable when running two weeks after the marathon – and I’d only been doing very short distances and a slow pace. There had been a lot of ice and rolling to try to get myself back on track.

To stand any chance of winning the series again, I knew I needed to come second in my age category in the race. There’s a lady of my age who is the best at running a mile in the whole country and based in Gloucester, so she would obviously come first. As she doesn’t do the rest of the series, it is fine for her to come first. I just needed to beat everyone else in my age category – like I did last year. But could I do it on my tired legs, having not run fast for ages?

The Bourton mile takes place on a Friday evening in May. Last year, it was hot and sunny. This year, it was quite warm at home and had been sunny earlier in the day. I was driving myself there, then my husband and son were going to go along a bit later with Hetty to watch the race.

As I drove out of Cheltenham, I drove into rain. And it was obvious it hadn’t just started raining, because the roads were very wet and even flooded in places. I called my husband to tell him to wear a coat. A bit later, I called him to ask him to bring me some spare clothes. As I arrived in Bourton-on-the-Water to park the car, the rain was absolutely biblical. I didn’t dare get out of the car at first, but I eventually realised I had no choice.

I had a spare pair of trainers to drive in and a hoodie to put over my running vest and shorts. No coat. No Dryrobe. No umbrella. I was soaked by the time I’d paid for my parking.

Race numbers were collected from Victoria Hall in the centre of the village between 6:15 and 7pm. I arrived just before 6:30. There was also an unsupervised bag storage area at the hall, where all the runners were waiting to stay dry. Toilets were the toilets in the hall. There was literally one cubicle for the ladies, plus one disabled toilet the ladies were using, but the queue was never more than a couple of minutes.

The race started a mile outside the village at 7:30pm. I wanted to get a decent warm-up, as the way the heartrate has to go up for a mile race is brutal. It’s best not to start with it too low. At just after 7, I set out for the start line. At this point, the rain had briefly stopped and there was a stunning rainbow. The pavement and roads were flooded and it was impossible to avoid the water. I jogged for about half a mile, then did half a mile of warm-up drills.

At the start line, I sheltered under a tree with some ladies from our club. It had started raining again and I’m not sure the tree really did shelter us. I did a few short, fast runs up and down the road, which was still open to traffic.

At 7:25, the road was closed and the timing strip set down. There were signs telling us where to assemble with 4, 5, 6 and 7 minutes on them. I lined up by the 6 and one of the ladies from my club told me I should go further forward, but I stayed put. My PB is 6:19 and I was hoping for under 6:30.

The race started at 7:30 on the dot, with a juniors race starting at 7:32 precisely. Obviously the faster juniors ended up crossing the finish line before some of the slower adults.

I started the race just behind my main rival in the series and quickly overtook her. My watch was telling me I was running at 5:56 min/ mile. I kept this pace up for a while. It was tough, but I felt OK. The warm-up had obviously really helped me. The quarter mile sign came up quickly. My pace dropped to an average of 6:04 min/ miles, but that was fine. I was still ahead of my PB and my marathon legs felt remarkably good.

The half mile sign came up. I was breathing noisily. My pace was still dropping a bit. But I was overtaking men, so that was good.

It felt like a long time to get from half a mile to three-quarters of a mile, but the three-quarters of a mile sign gave me a boost. We were back in the village properly now. We passed Birdland and the river Windrush which was unsurprisingly very high.

I can’t remember exactly what point my main rival overtook me. It was about three-quarters of a mile probably. For a second, I let her go. Then I decided I wasn’t letting her go. I needed to come second! I kept right up with her, then had a massive push to get me over the finish line a fraction of a second before her. I’d definitely gone faster because she was there!

My chip time was 6:23.7, literally 0.8 seconds faster than my official time last year (although there was an issue with the timing last year!). My rival’s chip time was one second slower than mine, but she’d crossed the start line half a second before me, which meant we actually crossed the finish line 0.5 seconds apart.

She was very nice about it and we had a hug at the end. Running is very friendly and we all support each other, even while trying to beat each other.

There was a cup of water, a small pack of sweets and the world’s tiniest medal at the finish.

I found my husband, son and Hetty, who were all drenched and unhappy. They definitely should have stayed at home! All the runners and spectators went back inside the hall to shelter and the presentations were held in there, rather than on the grass by the river. People who run the race every year tell me they’ve never known it to rain before.

The presentations are LONG – approximately five times longer than the race. First there are the awards for the actual race – top three male and female overall in both the junior and senior race, then first in each age category. Then it moves onto the county awards – with a bronze, silver and gold in each age category. As I was standing with a little group from my club, soaked to the skin, I realised how hungry I was and remembered that I hadn’t eaten. And there’s nowhere to get food quickly in Bourton apart from a chip shop that cooks its chips in meat fat. I finally got some food at 9:30pm.

I picked up my hard-fought silver medal and everyone else in the club picked up medals too – we had a lady in the 60 category, one in the 65 category, two ladies in the 70 category and a man in the 70 category.

Bourton mile was a real challenge and I’m so glad it went so well.

The two good photos were taken by Rob Hume.