Project Breaking-18 gathers pace

I take another shot at running a 5K in under 18 minutes at a fast Tuesday night race in Exeter

A scene from the Exeter 5K

It seems 5K is the new 100 miles. For me, anyway. My new running “project”. With a neat time goal and everything.

It all started by accident, with a throwaway comment from Eoin Mack in Ireland, who joked that after running 1,400 miles around an entire country, people would want to know what I was doing next, and I’d probably say “parkruns”.

At that moment, though, 60-odd days into the longest run I’d ever done, a parkrun did seem rather appealing. A quick hit of running fun, over - literally - in minutes, but still enough to make the day glow with all those feelgood endorphins.

Then, a few months ago, I turned up to my regular running club night and they were doing a 5K time trial, and I ran 18:19, my fastest 5K for six years. Afterwards I set myself the rather random goal to try to beat that in 2025.