Cambridge Half Marathon, 5 Mar 2023

On Sunday 15,000 people gathered on Midsummer Common to run the Cambridge Half Marathon. Every year I have been at Cambridge I have intended to join the throng of runners (and yet always seem to forget and miss the deadline). This year, however was different.

Coming off the back of an injury and having raced a 10-mile TT the day before, I went into the race with no expectations, I just wanted to have fun and try and run the whole thing (but with the awareness that an ankle and knee injury are not conducive to running well). It was a cold morning so the first few miles of the race were simply used to warm up properly. Once this had been achieved I started to really enjoy the run. The route was lovely, snaking through some of the Cambridge colleges before stretching out to the Coton roundabout and weaving back through Grantchester. I was running for charity (Maggie’s Cambridge and the John Muir Trust (Jamie’s Wood)) which was a great experience and definitely motivated me to race well (if not necessarily fast) in reflection of the wonderful work that these organisations do. A big part of my enjoyment of the race was the number of people spectating and looking genuinely happy to be out on a freezing cold morning in March.

As I started out steady, my legs were still feeling pretty good by the half way point. I was running with no data as I didn’t want to set any expectations of myself in terms of performance and risk disappointment or further injury. The first time I had any idea how fast I was running was at mile 8 going along the Coton Road rise where I checked my Strava which reported an average 4:45 per km split. This was a pleasant surprise as I thought I was probably running around a 5:30! With this knowledge in hand I felt as though I could speed up for the remainder of the race. However, this decision was made with the confusion of thinking that a half marathon was 12 miles rather than 13.1 (note to self: know what the distance of the race you’re running is). After a rather fast mile 11, and a fairly painful mile 12, I felt as though I had enough in the tank for a sprint finish. Crossing the line and finding out I had run 1:41:41 was a great feeling as it was 20 minutes faster than my previous half marathon (granted this was raced in 2019). However, with little-to-no running training and achy legs from racing the day before I was really happy with this result. Overall, I had a great time racing and am looking forward to running the Great North Run in September (which I will actually train for!) and hope to break the 1 hour 40 mark.

Maddie Angwin