What it feels like to run at the Olympic stadium...

When Ben Salmon was picked to run in the inaugural race, he had no idea he would be treated like Usain Bolt himself

Usain Bolt wins the men’s 200m final at last year’s World Athletics Championships at Daegu, South Korea, left, and Ben Salmon (Getty Images)

Unless Usain Bolt eschews the athletes village in favour of the delights of Brockley, south east London, he won't face the same commute as I did on race day at the Olympic Park.

My accreditation pass – a photograph, hologram and the word "TEAM" – meant that I at least, was able to skip most of the lengthy queues. Today, we student runners are supposed to be treated exactly as the real athletes will be.

My first stop was the Five Rings Lounge, a sheltered platform with views of the whole stadium, reserved for competitors. It is where Team GB will watch their teammates competing, grab a banana and an IOC-approved soft drink as they watch the drama on track. The view alone gave me whooshes of nerves.

My coach and I, as Usain will do, went down a long tunnel and onto the main warm-up track. The muffled sound of applause and the Tannoy from the main stadium means you can never forget why you're here.

The stadium in full roar will affect everyone in different ways, but the warm-up track is no place for blocking it out. The "heat sheets" for the 1500m, my race, were put up on a noticeboard in a little hut on one side of the track. All the competitors, as their Olympic counterparts will do, head over to see which race they're in.

It is in this hut, we are told, that athletes will be randomly selected for drug tests. There is then time for a bit of warming up until, exactly 48 minutes before my scheduled race time of 11.26am, comes the "First Call", flashing on the scoreboard.

The 14 people in my heat make our way into a long covered room, with athletics track-style flooring. We are shown into a small cubicle with folding chairs, where we sit thigh-to-thigh. A volunteer asks us questions, confirming we are the right people.

Then the "Final Call". We make our way down a long corridor, then into the indoor warm-up area, complete with 60m running track. We collect our front numbers, which contain a tiny microchip clocking your lap times and are given a lane number. Each lane has a folding chair. Or warm-up a bit more. There is quite a lot of time to think.

Then: "Heat Three. Final, Final Call. We're going now." You line up in a long concrete tunnel. There you meet the volunteers, who are lined up carrying plastic buckets. When you walk out, they follow.

As we go out, I manage to spot my family among the 79,000 or so empty seats and glimpse my name on the giant scoreboard.

Then, it's finally time to go.

"On your marks!" We walk, shaking our legs and looking ahead.

"Set!"

We adopt the distance runner start.

"Pffff!"

I expected a bang, but strangely the starting signal sounds more like someone shaking an Etch-A-Sketch.

It must have been a full second before it dawned on me that we were actually racing. The race is all a bit of a blur. I remember all the clocks on the track as you run round. I am more used to checking my watch.

And it's a fast track. Very fast. It seems to push you forward as you run. At the end of the race, we are led up some steps and through the long chicanes of the press area.

In a little room in the bowels of the stadium, I am reunited with my valuables and head off to find my family.

I came 12th of 14 in my heat – two places higher than I anticipated – and I broke my personal best in London's Olympic Stadium. At the time of writing, that's more than Usain Bolt can say, after all.