“Up-and-coming runner Alex Lygo has made big strides over the past 12 months or so.

So much so that the 16-year-old is hoping to run the mile in under four minutes, 30 seconds this year.

The teenager has been a member of Dursley Running Club for the past  six or seven years but it’s only in the past year that he has started to take the sport seriously.

“He started to realise that he’s actually quite good,” said his dad Dan, who is one of the juniors’ coaches at the club.

“He used to play football for Dursley Town but he suddenly realised that running was where he really excelled.”

It was a message that he’d been getting from Dan, his mum Sam and his sister Emma for a while so what was it that made him realise he could run for fun?

“There was a big celebration day around this time last year to coincide with the Coronation Weekend,” explained Dan.

“Alex ran the mile and he finished fourth overall in four minutes, 56, and he decided, ‘I’m quite good at this’.”

Indeed he is. He also competes over 5K and 10K and these days running is very much his thing.

“He used to run at the club once a week,” continued Dan. “But he only ran so that he could be fit for football, he wasn’t really interested in running.”

The one-time Rednock School pupil, who is now a student at South Gloucestershire and Stroud College, was a left-back or left-sided midfielder but these days doesn’t play the beautiful game.

“He’s now running five times a week,” said Dan. “He trains three times a week with Dursley and twice with the college.”

And all that hard work is certainly paying off and the times he has been producing are impressive.

At the time of writing he has a best of 17.03 for the 5K and his best in the 10K – a distance he has run only twice - is 35.57.

That was in the Berkeley 10K at the end of April when he finished 13^th overall and first in the under-20 category.

Dan, who was a county runner back in the day, reckons the shorter distances are Alex’s strength at this stage of his development but while he’s obviously got potential there’s plenty to work on.

“He tends to go off like the clappers in races, then he tries to hold on," said Dan. "That’s something we’re working on, he needs to learn to pace himself better.”

And there’s little doubt that he will get better because Alex, who lives in Dursley with his family, is ambitious.

“He wants to go up to the next level,” said Dan, who will be 55 in September.

“He’s run for the South West in the National College Championships and for Gloucestershire at the National Cross-Country Championships. He wants to improve at national level and go as far as he can.”

Dan is still a good runner himself although he readily admits that Alex, who is studying sports science at college, is better than he was at the same age.

“I’m really looking forward to my birthday,” said Dan, who ran the recent Berkeley 10K in 43.48. “At the moment I’m the oldest in my age group but in September I’ll move up and be the youngest.”

That will obviously please him and he’ll be even more pleased if Alex realises his ambition to run a sub-4.30 mile this year.

And he’s got every confidence in him. “I think he’ll do it,” he said.