I have spent a lot of time recently while out running thinking about the pressure we often feel as runners to always achieve a Personal Best. It isn’t helped by the fact that once people find out you are a runner, the subject of PBs becomes a regular part of your conversations. No one – not even relative strangers – will beat around the bush about it. They will ask you outright to reveal your vital PB stats. It doesn’t even seem to occur to others that the question might be somewhat personal. But it’s worse if you are a parkrunner, training for an event or a member of a running group because discussions around PBs are literally inescapable. I cannot count the number of times I have been quizzed about my PB while standing at the start line, or even worse, while I was literally running in the middle of an event. It’s not that I am especially secretive about my PBs, but I tend to have other things on my mind during a race.