For the last two years I have taken part in the Mini Marathon.   The Mini Marathon is a race for people aged eleven to seventeen.   The race’s route is the last three miles of the official London Marathon route.   When we arrived, we were all feeling nervous and fidgety.   As my age group, girls eleven to twelve years old, went last, we talked to our friends in our boroughs about this and that.   As the morning went on, we became less nervous.   When it was finally our turn to warm up, the sun had come out and we were just glad to be there.   As we took our places at the starting line, I repeated to myself the running techniques I had been told by various people during my preparation.   Then the claxon sounded.   As I was running, oddly enough I did not feel particularly competitive with my rivals from other boroughs, more that I wanted to beat my own personal best, which I thought was 24 minutes, so I ran hard with a target time of 20 minutes.   I ended up being the fastest of the City of London 11-12 years girls group, with a time of 23 minutes.   I was disappointed with my time until I learned that last year I actually did it in 27 minutes, so I was better by four minutes after all.

Nina, Year 8