Kate Jacobs loves everything about running.

She loves the competition, she loves to win and she loves the social side.

The Cirencester Athletics Club runner also enjoys organsising teams, which is pretty handy because she has been captain of the club’s women’s section for the past 18 months.

Kate, who is 48, grew up in Cirencester – she went to Kingshill School – but it was when she was in her 20s and living in Swindon that she first took up running.

She used to run on a treadmill just to keep fit but when she discovered that her times were pretty decent she joined Swindon Harriers.

“I was a member at Swindon for 15 years,” she said. “Then I moved back to Cirencester and I’ve been a member of Cirencester Athletics Club for three years.”

And she’s loving every moment.

She’s been focusing on the Gloucestershire AAA Road Race Series for the past three years and she said: “It starts in January and ends in November so it’s quite a long season.

“Last season Cirencester’s women won the team event for the Open and veterans, we’ve got a very strong team.

“I came second in the whole league, I was pipped by a point by Emily Chandler from Stroud Athletic Club.”

At the time of writing, Cirencester are leading the way in this season’s Open competition, while Kate is the leading individual.

“It’s all to play for, I enjoy it, I try to encourage as many people as possible at the club to take part,” she said. “The reason we won last season wasn’t just because of the leading runners, it’s down to everybody taking part.”

The races can vary from five miles up to 20 miles and Kate continued: “I do better at the shorter distances, five to 10 miles is my favourite.”

And like many runners, she knows her stats.

“My PB for the 5K is 17 minutes, 11 seconds,” she said. “For 10 miles it’s one hour, two minutes, for the 10K it’s 36 minutes dead and for the half marathon it’s one hour, 22.

“I’ve always been a middle distance runner. When I ran on the track my favourite distance was 3,000 metres with the the odd 5,000 metres.”

She stopped running on the track some seven years ago when her daughter Jessica was born and instead started running ultra-marathons.

“They were longer and slower, I didn’t think I had the leg speed to run the shorter distances,” she explained.

Happily, that’s proved not to be the case and it’s obvious that she’s enjoying the sport now as much as she has ever done.

And her daughter Jessica is showing an interest too.

“She’s just done her first parkrun,” said her proud mum, who is a senior marketing manager. “She enjoyed it, she’s got speedy legs. It’s early days, we’ll see how it goes.”

And if she does get the running bug she’ll have her mum to lean on as well because Kate is very happy in her role at Cirencester AC.

“I love being captain,” she said. “The team are doing really well and we’ve got a lovely bunch of people at the club. I’m happy to carry on doing the job for as long as they want me to.”