I saw a naked runner yesterday. There I was at the University of Birmingham running track, minding my own business doing laps, when he overtook me, writes Hannah Webster.

I was mildly surprised  for a split-second until I noticed a group of lads all standing at the other side of the track, finding it hilarious. Another naked runner overtook me and I realised this was obviously one of those incredibly witty, funny practical jokes students like to play.

In case you didn’t notice my sarcasm, I’ll have to make it clear that the humour of these boys was infantile. The track was virtually deserted with one other man at the far end, and having two naked men running alongside me was vaguely intimidating – I’m sure that’s what the point of the “joke” was – but I just completely ignored them.

A wave of anger ran through me for a second at the fact that I was involuntarily the butt end of a joke purely because I was female as I was minding my own business pursuing my hobby, but then I realised I couldn’t be bothered to be annoyed at a bunch of ridiculous juveniles.

I was at the track doing six quarter-mile repeats, against my better judgment with the knee injury, and against some kind advice on the message board of this blog (sorry lye chris – I just couldn’t help myself). But, having warmed up thoroughly on the exercise bike in the gym and stretched every muscle in my legs carefully, it wasn’t too bad.

The aim was to do the repeats in about 2 minutes 10 seconds each, with two minutes recovery between each one, maintaining that speed for all six. I managed between 1 minute 56 seconds and 2 minutes 3 seconds, which is a bit too quick really. The idea is of maintaining a speed all the way through the repeats, and considering it was my first speed session, I should have tried to be slightly slower. The only problem is that it’s very hard to accurately estimate your pace, and the last thing I want is to be too slow. I was utterly exhausted at the end – but I suppose that’s the point.

My knee didn’t cause me any aggravation, which is fantastic. But then, it is only 12 minutes of running, and it usually starts hurting at about 33 minutes. I don’t think I’ll do my long run this Sunday (7 miles to start with) to give it more time, and substitute with cycling.

At the moment, it’s not looking too bad, but I’m still crossing my fingers hard.