So, I pushed my personal boundaries and succumbed to a bit of (healthy) peer pressure on an intoxicated Saturday night to sign up for a half marathon.

I started my running journey during the first lockdown when my 14 year old wanted to do something during the 1 hour we were allowed for exercise. So, we did the C25K in our back garden, 50 loops, the carvings of the trails are still well visible from space after 2 years.

Good thing is that we both completed it and continued running. It has given me the headspace and a whole new group of likeminded crazies, for which I am forever grateful. Anyhow back to the half marathon.

For my 50th I took a bit of inspiration (or stole the idea) from Ginny and challenged myself to run 10 5k’s and 5 10k’s. I did that in 2021, collected lovely medals and ran in some amazing places, so for 2022 I needed a new challenge, so here it was ‘a Half Marathon’.

I did pull off the beginner training programme and was a bit shocked with the amount of running involved, so I decided to tweak it a bit to combine with work and family. I planned my long runs on the weekend and as I am not very good with multiple loops, I did ask Vince to drop me somewhere and then I would run back home. That worked.

The best long run was the time I ran back from Wimpole parkrun. I didn’t take the low, never ending Flecks Lane, but decided to go over the ridge: Croydon and then follow the Clopton Way. It is beautiful, albeit undulating, and with headwind, it just never seemed to end.

Anyhow, in the end, I didn’t complete my full training schedule and I did learn a hard lesson that they are written from experience ….

The week before the event, the head squirrels did work quite hard to put so many doubts in my head. I almost bailed out, but after chatting to some friends I decided to rock up and enjoy it.

On the day of the Cambridge Half, I caught up with my running buddy, Emily. She chats the whole way, so it is really nice to be distracted from the actual running itself. The course was beautiful, especially the bits around the colleges, and how nice it is to run on closed roads, so you don’t have pavements to mount.

So, the running machine was all good up until 10 miles, thought to wing the last 3, as it would only be a ParkRun, right? Well, so wrong!!!! That road from Trumpington to the finish was never ending and my ankles and legs were just not wanting to continue…. Anyhow, a bit of slow jeffing (whilst being overtaken by quite a few of the Chasers crew), but I made it. The feeling was amazing, even had a little cry as who would have thought my body was capable of running all that way!!!!

So great to see so many of our club taking part and what an experience. Would I run another one…. Well, never say never, but not any time soon…..

So, girls and lads, aim high, you will be amazed at what you can achieve when you put your mind to it (but please do as the training schedule tells you and don’t ‘wing it’)

By Astrid Slijkoord