Jo Pavey on top of the ladder

Last week, Jo Pavey was sitting in 35th position on the runbritain National Ladder but after her gritty and inspiring performance at the Commonwealth Games, that had everyone in the stadium up on their feet and everyone at home shouting at the televisions, she has leapt to the very top of the ladder, hurdling other Commonwealth Games medallists along the way!

Jo won a bronze medal in the 5000m on the Saturday night and had everyone, from all of the home nations, on the edge of their seats as she battled with three Kenyan athletes on the home straight. Her blistering finish almost got her the silver but the line came a little too soon and so bronze it was on this occasion.

What makes this performance even more inspirational is the fact that she lowered her runbritain handicap score from MINUS 0.9 to MINUS 2.6, making an improvement of 1.7, which is a great start to the month of August by anyone's standards and she could give us all a run for our money in the Reward Running competition, if she intends to race more regularly through this month. Jo was 35th largely because she had only done four races this year (and no others since 2012) and you need to do five recent ones to best score in the handicap system.

This huge improvement has seen her hurdle over other Commonwealth medallists, Lynsey Sharp (handicap MINUS 2.3) and Laura Weightman (handicap MINUS 2.3) as well as Julia Bleasdale (handicap MINUS 2.3) who had to pull out of the Commonwealth Games because of injury.

runbritain is a one-stop destination for road racers and race organisers which offers a Grand Prix Series of road races and support and incentives for race organisers and runners.

The runbritain handicap rankings is a great motivational tool which translates your running results into a golf-style handicap, brought to you for free by runbritain.

Do you know what your position is on the National Ladder? If you have claimed your handicap score, you will be on the ladder. You will find your ladder position and your position within your gender, age group and post code on your profile page on the right hand side just underneath your photograph.

If your postcode ranking is missing it may be because we don't know it yet. All you need to do is click on 'What are these?' and you will be instructed on how to tell us where you live.