St Neots Half Marathon, 16 Nov 2025
This was quite a significant race for me – my first ever Half Marathon was in 2022 at this event, and since then I’ve been wanting to do it again. In 2023 and 2024 I re-entered, then was unable to do the race due to annoying niggles/injuries. For the whole of 2025 I have been able to run injury free, which was a relief, with occasional runs early in the year while focussing on cycling, then building distance and speed over the summer and autumn through to the Ouse Valley Way Half two months ago. After completing that, I entered St Neots again, and a 10k race, meaning a bit more focus on speed. Sadly, late in one session the niggle I had in 2024 came back! Such a depressing moment – I skipped some sessions, got some sports therapy and missed the 10k race, hoping all would be ok for the Half.
Backing off from running down to short test runs over several weeks meant training wasn’t ideal leading into the race, but I kept everything crossed, deciding at the last minute to play it safe and run in my long run shoes. After a sleepless night, but a decent warmup and drills, I was (sort-of) ready to go. My previous intention had been to aim for 5min/km pace, and I decided to stick to that plan for the first few km and see how things were. This went ok and there was no sign of the calf niggle after 5km (it usually comes on after 3-4 km), so I kept going at that pace, backing off up the hills so as not to strain anything, and staying with the 1:45 pacer that I had seen early in the race.
At halfway I was very conscious that it was a long walk back if my calf gave up then, but I kept going, up the last hill and into the final 6km stretch which is mostly downhill. It was tempting to push on more here (as I did last time), but I decided to just let the downhill do its work, going slightly faster and leaving the 1:45 pacer behind for the first time. Round the last corner to the finish and it was a low 1:44 (in fact 1:44.25 official time), a new PB by about 30 seconds which I am very happy about!
Tim Phillips