Wilmslow Half Marathon, 22 Mar 2026

My race plan was hastily scribbled down the night before on a scrap of paper. I’d been doing just over 4 min km in training, so thought 1:25 would be a good target. I planned to have a caffeine gel 15 mins before the start and a normal gel at miles 5 and 10.

The course had 100m of descent in the first half, with the reverse in the second half, so I couldn’t do even pacing and had to go on feel. I managed a reasonable warm up considering how crowded the start was (Wilmslow is about 4000 runners now).

Despite paces being clearly signed in the start pen, where I positioned myself near 1:20 pace, I still ended up having to fight my way through lots of runners in the first few miles. I tried to settle on what felt like LT pace, which ended up being around 6.10/mile, and felt fairly comfortable round to the halfway point. 10k in 38.40 meant I had a reasonable amount of time in the bag for my 1.25 target and the uphill second half.

Things got trickier in the second half due not only to it being uphill overall, but it was also more rolling, which sapped the legs and made it more difficult to pace. Pace dropped to 6.30-6.40, but still felt confident for my target.

I started to get cramp in my left calf in the last few miles, which didn’t slow me down too much until it started to spread to my hamstring and a couple of slow miles 12 and 13. Ultimately this meant I just missed out on sub 1.25, with 1.25.11 but I was happy with my performance overall, 337th out of 3728.

In summary I kept to the race plan well, with gels taken as planned and felt I judged pace well for the downhill first half and uphill second. Cramp slowed me down in the last few miles which I suspect was the legs being tired due to a more rolling course than I was used to. I need to work on leg conditioning and speed-endurance for the next one, and probably get a few more miles under my belt.

Mark Crook