Jo Pavey, Olympic runner: Born to Run

I feel honoured to be a Born to Run ambassador for Save the Children. I hope to give you an insight into the ups and downs of my life as an athlete.

Today I feel quite jet lagged and sore as I have just returned from New York where I competed in the New York City half marathon. It was a great event to compete in. The course — eight miles of laps of Central Park for eight miles followed by running through the streets of New York, passing through Times Square — was an exciting route.

It was a tough field, with the first five athletes beating the course record. I finished sixth; just a few seconds outside the previous record. Even though I was a little disappointed with my position, I was pleased with my time.

It did feel like a bit of sharpness was lacking when the leader threw in two consecutive mile splits (splits are a runner’s time for each mile during a race) of 5:03 and 5:04 at mile 11 and 12. I did enjoy the race though, and hopefully it will have been beneficial for my London marathon preparations.

Our visit to New York was made very enjoyable by how welcoming the organisers were to us as a family. My husband, my son and my mum were all there, which made me feel very relaxed and happy before the race.

We were very lucky to have the chance to see some of the city due to the fantastic location of the hotel, which is sadly not always the case.  I had managed to go to Paris three times without seeing the Eiffel Tower!

Now that I am back in London, everything is geared towards the London Marathon. Right now, I’m trying to get my legs to recover as soon as possible to enable me to do the final push of hard training before the taper down (tapering down is the gradual reduction in training in the period leading up to a race). I hope that I will be reporting that things are going to plan!

Good luck to you all.

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