As the former sprinter turns 50 this month she looks back on the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 where she won 400m silver in 50.71.

The now-BBC Radio commentator overcame torrid heat and a kit mishap to take silver behind the Games record of 50.17 from Jamaica’s Sandie Richards, producing a Scottish mark which still stands today.

I grew up in the North East of England but my dad was born in Scotland because my gran refused to have a child in England. I think he only lived in Scotland for a year. When I started competing indoors, there were only two indoor tracks – RAF Cosford down in the Midlands and the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow. When I was about 15, I went up to do a 400m and won and some official was told that I had Scottish qualification. When I got my medal, I was pulled aside and asked about it.

 At that point, I never thought about it but that was the seed of me thinking: “This could be brilliant.” I'd grown up watching Liz McColgan and seeing what the Commonwealths meant to Scotland, so I very quickly opted in, heading towards the 1994 Games in Canada.

They brought me on to a development squad with the likes of Ian Mackie, Sinead Dudgeon and Lorna Jackson. Mel Neef was around and I'd hit it off with her and joined the Edinburgh Woollen Mill club. I knew they’d select one development athlete [for the Games] and I was hoping it would be me, but I had a shocker at the British Champs. I don't even think I got to the final and I found out on Teletext that they were taking Ian.

I sat there thinking: “1998 – it's got to happen.” And that next three years, my career really did skyrocket. I'd had a phenomenal 1997. Everything had worked well. I won my European Under-23 title and I’d run the Scottish record by then, which was the big thing, because everyone was raving about Linsey MacDonald’s record.

There were two things that were very important to me: that record, which had stood for so long, and then getting to the Commonwealths and making the podium. I could dare to dream of it off the back of a good 1997 where I'd also won at the World Student Games and got to the semi-final of the world championships.

Cathy Freeman was the big name building into the Sydney Olympics but, as soon as we found out she wasn't going to the Commonwealths, everyone was looking at Sandie Richards. At the same time, me and Donna Fraser had started building a really strong rivalry.

Kuala Lumpur was so humid. One of our physios was Liz Mendl, and she was amazing, a real psychologist for me. I was terrible with heatm despite reasonable warm-weather training. I used to never want to train during the day because it was too hot and my face was red and my hair was just this humid mess. Liz lent me this bandana. I never ran in one again after I saw the pictures, but it made a big difference.

We also had a nightmare with our kit. We were given it when we all arrived in KL … only to find that if you'd ordered a size eight, your kit was age eight and so forth. I had to run in it in the heats because they hadn’t managed to get a replacement. Cherry Alexander rang Brendan Foster and they got View From kit flown out to us. It was navy blue but I don't even think they had time to put Scotland on it. It was hard enough running in the heat with an age eight kit that was restricting my ribs.

I was realistic going into the final. It was really just the three of us going for the medals. The best thing for me was that Donna ran her PB in the semi. At that point, she had never beaten me. That was the first time. In the final, because of that semi, I drew Lane Two. Nowadays you'd be going: “I want to be in one of the outside lanes.” With the tech, the shoes, you want to be in six or a seven, whereas back then, Lane Four was your favourite. Donna had Lane Three and Sandie was in Four.

Donna came from 100m, 200m and up. I was always more of an endurance runner when I was a kid, doing 800m, 1500m and cross-country. At that point, there weren't 400m/800m runners.

I needed to improve my speed. Running against Donna, over the first 200m with those long legs of hers, I felt like I was doing two strides to every one of hers. In KL, I had the mentality that, as long as I was right on Donna's shoulder and she didn't have a metre or two on me coming into home straight, I’d probably get her. And Lane Two gave me that benefit. She hated that last 100m and she only really got it right in the Sydney Olympic final, when she was just one stride away from a medal.

Sometimes, you go into a race and you are realistic. Of course, everyone wants to win, but I think we knew Sandie would get gold. I’d broken 51 seconds but she’d broken 50. In the final, she ran a Games record and there's no way I was anywhere close.

I never ran quicker. And it’s amazing my Scottish record still stands. Our BBC statistician, Mark Butler, puts the rankings at the bottom of all of our crib notes: world's top ten, the current UK all-time list. When I got bumped off the UK top ten, he kept adding me at the bottom. I’m now 13th so it needs a longer piece of paper. At least I'll appear back on his notes for the Commonwealths this year. I didn't have a long career in the end and 1997 and 1998 were where I made good things happen.

As told to Mark Woods