Young racer broke three rcords in eight days and didn’t know about two of them

Three British records fell to Jemma Reekie within the space of eight amazing days in February in Glasgow and New York.

The mark for the indoor 800m fell to Reekie at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow and the bests for the indoor mile and 1500m were beaten by the young Scot in the same race at The Armory in New York.

But Reekie’s “blinkers-on” approach is such that she doesn’t waste energy wondering about lap splits and times while out on the track and didn’t realise what she’d achieved.

Indeed it took a Transatlantic phone-call to her coach, Andy Young, to learn that her 4:17.88 run for the mile at the Millrose Games in New York’s indoor venue was a British record.

“At one stage I was taking too much notice of the times I was running,’ Jemma told Scottish Athletics.

“We changed that and I had to get into the mindset of “just run as fast as you can and do your best on the day”. I stopped looking a lap splits and that kind of thing. Even in training, Andy started saying to me “just run as fast as you feel you can today”.

He made me focus on trying to win races, rather than think too much about times.

“So, when I went over to America, I didn’t know a good time for the mile indoors.

“I don’t really look at records (in advance). I phoned him immediately after the race from the track and said “Is that okay?’. He told me ‘It was a British record!’.

“I know a good time for 800m or 1500m but I didn’t know an indoor mile time and I also didn’t realise they were taking a 1500m split off that race. I only found out later that was a British record, too,” added Reekie.

“Andy doesn’t let us get ahead of ourselves. But he will congratulate you if you have done well.

“I watch races back, and I’ve had a lot of bad races, and I even watch them to see what I might have done differently.

“When I ran 1:57 for 800m at the Emirates there was a realisation that I’d put myself “out there’ as someone who can run that fast.

“I had to get my own head around that. I knew I was in good shape.

“Andy has been through everything like this with Laura [Muir] over the years so he knows exactly how to manage it for me.’