Cardiff Half Marathon

The Lloyds TSB Cardiff Half Marathon

Sunday 16th October ‘ stupid o’clock in the morning.

It’s an early morning start as Neil and I make our way into town to park up the car. It’s grey and overcast with a light drizzle as we drive in and for 7.00am on a Sunday morning the roads are unusually busy. We park up and join the hordes of runners and spectators walking down to the bay for the start line. As we stand waiting at the 2 hour marker for the 9 o’clock start the clouds break and the sun begins to shine.

It’s a great start, with us taking just over 8 minutes to cross the line, an improvement on last year! With a different route we miss out on the beautiful Bute Park, but given the congestion of the previous year, this is a bonus. We run in front of the castle and along Cowbridge Road East where a little boy is shouting to us to “keep running, don’t stop” which is funny to hear at the 3-4 mile marker – did he know something we didn’t The new route took us along Leckwith Road and up to the slip road to the A4232 Ely link bypass on to the Grangetown bypass, there is still a strong pack here and to see such a large number of people running on a road which usually has cars hurtling down is amazing. Though this quickly turns to dismay as you see just how long and monotonous this road is!!!!(maybe the little boy by the castle knew about this one!) For me this was probably the worst part of the course, the breeze blowing over the Taff Viaduct is a welcome relief. When you get to the turnaround point at Techniquest the crowds are gathered in masses and do an excellent job of cheering the runners on. All throughout the route people were out to show their support, from the lady telling us to “keep smiling, keep waving” at both the city bridge and bay bridge ( she must of put in a few miles herself!), the volunteers handing out the water and lucozade with encouragement at the drinks station to the oggy oggy oggy shouts as we ran under bridges, there was a real carnival atmosphere. Even the people waiting patiently in the cars gave a cheer.

Well done to Neil, who completed to the run in 2hrs26min24sec. With training injuries and chest infection he did brilliantly. My run itself was going well, really well in fact, I was running at around 8 minute miles until my stitch! It hit me at the 9 mile marker and by the 10 it had doubled. Try as I might I just couldn't shift it. I finished 3 minutes slower than last year at 1hrs56mins26secs – whether this was down to the fact that I’m another year older, hadn’t put as much training in or the fact that we ran 200m further than last year – who knows? It was still an amazing day, well organized and great fun to take part in and all when raising money for a worthy charity! I have to give a huge thank you to all that donated and special thank you to my family who were there at the finish for me. And to Sophie – get your running shoes on girl!

For Cardiff Half marathon details - click here

For information on support, research and fundraising for MS please click here.

#CardiffHalfMarathon #LLoydscardiffhalfMarathon