Sheffield Half Marathon Report

Following my misty morning at Wimpole I set off up to Sheffield for the Plusnet Yorkshire Half Marathon this morning. I ran the race last year and it is a very pretty course (helped by the fact that last year the weather was very nice). As you'll see from the course profile below, it's not exactly a flat course - the first five miles is almost all uphill, with some pretty sustained steep sections. After that, barring a few short climbs, it is pretty much all downhill to the finish (Full race details on Strava to the right of this post).

Last year's time was 1:43:52. I didn't really know what to expect this year, I was a few minutes off my PB at the Cambridge half last month and I decided that if I could get round in 1:45 then I'd be happy. It was another glorious day and I was concerned that it may get a bit too hot, but fortunately there was plenty of shade around the course. My plan was to stick with the pacer all the way round, but this went out of the window straight away as I was about 200m behind the pacer by the time I made it over the start line. By 2km I was almost caught up, but his pace up the hill was too much for me, so at the top of the climb I was pretty much back to where I started! Last year I expended a bit too much energy on the hill and struggled to take advantage of the downhill second half, but this year I felt pretty good once I'd recovered from the ascent and finally caught and passed the pacer at around 18km. There's a nasty little uphill kick in the final kilometre, but I managed to finish strong and cross the line in 1:42:22, a full 90 seconds faster than last year, so I'm pretty pleased with that. It also bodes well for the Wings for Life World Run, which I'm taking part in next month in Cambridge. More on that soon, but I'm aiming for a 5 min/km pace over 27km, if I can manage 4:50/km over 21km with a big hill in the middle then hopefully an extra 6km on the flat fens of Cambridgeshire will be doable.

Finally, having run this race twice now I would definitely recommend it to others - well organised, very scenic course that is also a real challenge and the support from the people of Sheffield is amazing. I'll be back again next year!