Ours is the Winter: a gripping story of love, friendship and adventure. Laurie Ellingham

indoor arena hummed with the noise of a thousand spectators, of cheering families, and of hopes and dreams. Molly pulled in a long breath and smelt the tang of body odour and the rubbery smell of the new track beneath their feet.

      Molly glanced at the girls on either side of her. She recognized every face of the group staggered in their running lanes. She’d been competing with most of them for ten years. She knew their strengths and their weaknesses, she knew the ones who would cry with disappointment, and the ones who would grit their teeth and train harder next time. A few she even considered her friends.

      The expression on each face was the same grim focus. There were no smiles passed around, no wishes of good luck or the banter and jokes they’d shared waiting behind the barrier for their time to race. This was it. The final minutes before the gun sounded and all of their futures were decided.

      Molly pulled in another breath, ragged from the nerves exploding inside her. This was it. Her final race. The final win she needed to qualify for Team GB, for the chance to race in the Rio Olympics this summer. Everything she’d worked her whole life to achieve was right in front of her for the taking. Eight hundred metres, two minutes, and it would be hers.

      Sam, her coach, lingered to one side of the rest of the team. He was wearing a bright yellow jacket and a blue baseball cap, which made the clumps of his thick white hair stick out at odd angles. Even with the sky blue track and the barriers with their colourful advertising boards between them, Molly could see the worry written in the lines of his face. Training had not been going well. The last few months had been tough on them, on Molly, but that didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered except this race.

      A group of officials in white polo shirts and black trousers stepped across the lanes and took up their positions on the inside of the oval track. One man stepped close to the digital time board next to the inside lane. Molly’s eyes tracked the black gun in his hand before focusing her head forward. Every part of her body tingled with anticipation and adrenaline. She had this.

      In the periphery of her vision the starter lifted his arm. Molly crouched further into her start position, arms rigid, poised, ready to pump. Her heart hammered through her body.

      Bang.

      Electricity surged through Molly’s body as she sprung forward. Her legs stretched out, her arms pumped in long, fast movements. The missed training sessions, the bad runs, none of it mattered.

      The runners took the first curve of the oval together, but Molly felt the girl in lane five begin to fall back. Another surge of power hit Molly’s body as she strode between the two white lines of her lane. Three more paces, two more paces, one more pace – Molly beelined for the inside lane, tucking herself in position behind the front runner.

      Molly knew the girl in front. Beth. A good runner, but one who put more into her first four hundred metres than her second. If Molly could stick close to her heels for next few laps, she could take Beth at the end.

      Molly focused ahead and felt her breathing level and her movements become fluid. She was doing it. She was going to win. Her gaze fell to the black screen of the clock and time ticking by. Fifty-eight seconds in. On the next curve Molly sensed Beth’s pace slow just a fraction. Beth’s arms began to swing harder, her stride suddenly uneven.