On 5th October, I ran the Cardiff Half Marathon, which was my first Super Half. This was my 3rd race of 2025 and first half-marathon since I ran a PB at the 2023 Stafford Half Marathon in March 23. As was the case at the Stafford half 2 years ago, the Cardiff half was part of my build up to the Chicago Marathon, which was 7 days after Cardiff. With this week being the first week of the Chicago Taper, the plan was to run this as my tapered long run and aim for around 8:00min/mi pace.

It is fair to say 2025 wasn’t what I had planned when I signed up for this race. A seven-and-a-half-month injury layoff meant I had to pull out of the Lisbon and Berlin half marathons, along with other races. Had all gone to plan, I would have picked up my third Super Half stamp at Cardiff and then tried to run the remaining 3 in 2026, but, as I said, Cardiff is my first Super Half now. I was lucky enough to have got in just by signing up in 2024. This was before the Super Half series became popular. Now, Cardiff is a ballot-only entry, which I think will only make it more challenging to get a race bib, but I totally understand the need for a ballot to ensure a fair chance for all.

I moved from running the Abbott World Marathon majors to get away from entering ballots and running qualifying times, with the Super Half races now all going to ballot entries as well, I feel less inclined to go for the remaining 5 but here we are in Cardiff for number 1 at least.

With the injury layoff and build back from 216 of no running, the training for the Chicago Marathon has been such a challenge and shock to the system. What used to be my interval pace now feels impossible; half marathon pace from last year would now be a struggle over 5k. There have been lots of long runs where I have just had to stop and take a minute, I have walked parts and cut runs short. It’s not gone as well as I am used to. I nearly gave up on Chicago and almost switched to focusing “just” on the Cardiff Half, but I have made it to this point now so I am going to run this one and going steady with next week’s goal race in mind.

Due to this race not being a focus, I decided to cancel my hotel and drove down from Stoke on Trent on race morning, the 10am race start made this more achievable without a crazy alarm, but still a solid 3 hour drive before racing. I arrived into Cardiff for 9am and made my way to the event village. Quick toilet stop, bag drop and head to the start corrals…

That was the plan, and as with every plan this year, it went to pot at the bag drop. For whatever reason, the security check at the bag drop was taking so long! The queue to get in was huge, it took me 40 minutes to get through and check my bag. Speaking to a couple of guys who had run Cardiff multiple times before, it was never like this so not sure what was different in 2025.

All that meant I had to sprint from the bag check area to the start, which was about 5 mins away. The entrances to the corrals were full already, and I was in the front corral, based on my predicted finish of 1:19:59 I had entered last year. I ended up climbing over the barrier to get into the corral just as the gun went off. Not the ideal start, but I was quite chilled about it all, I wasn’t gunning for a PB after all, so if needs be, I would have started at the back if I had to.

Mile 1 – 7: 7:03, 7:05, 7:09, 7:22, 7:10, 7:16, 7:18

So as I said at the beginning, the goal was to run 13 miles at 8min pace and just take it very steady, not waste energy or risk aggravating the achilles before next weeks Chicago Marathon. I was starting in the front corral where most runners were going to be going at least 6:20/mi pace, so I positioned myself towards the back of the corral and to the right-hand side so as not to get in people’s way while running at a slower pace.

That didn’t quite happen. I was running at a slower pace than those around me, but I was also being dragged along and into a faster pace than I had planned. The first 3 miles were 7:03, 7:05 and 7:09. I could see the time on my watch and kept thinking to myself, I need to slow down, this is too quick. I hadn’t strung together anything more than 8mins at this kind of pace in training. Yes, I had ran the Brooklyn Half marathon at 7:50/mi and had run the Stafford Half at 6:20/mi two years ago, but my concern was pushing the body too far too soon on this injury comeback.

So with that in mind, I continued to run much faster than the plan, mile 4 – 7:22, mainly slower due to an uphill section and strong sea breeze, mile 5 7:10, back to being crazy pace.

What was crazy was the fact that I was 10k into the race in 44mins and felt pretty fresh and good about that. Having run 37min 10k’s before, 44mins isn’t a big achievement, but for where I was in that injury comeback and halfway through a half marathon, I was so pleased to see I still had some level of aerobic base. That’s only the halfway point, though. Could I continue at that pace? Should I even continue at that pace, given the aim was an 8-minute pace?

Mile 8 – 13.1: 7:14, 7:14, 7:23, 7:41, 7:24, 7:23, 6:36

I really enjoyed the second half of this race, the first half had quite a few sections where there were no crowds, parts were out next to the sea with a stiff breeze in your face.

Now we were running into Cardiff Bay and back into the city centre. That headwind was now a tailwind, the crowds were bigger and louder, and the sun was feeling warmer. My legs still felt strong, my body had the energy to keep going, and at no point did I feel tired or fatigued. I did run the second half slower than the first, but that was by choice. I held back on each mile, running within myself but still a good 30sec per mile faster than that 8-minute plan. Let’s be honest, that planned pace was a distant memory as soon as I crossed the start line, it was never even close.

What I loved about the Cardiff half was the crowd support, yes the first half was quieter than the second, but that is good, its the latter stages of a race where you need that extra boost and Cardiff showed up to give us runners that push. There was one hill at mile 12 which was about 50ft over a quarter mile, not massive but 12 miles into a 13.1 mile race, it stings. Both sides of the road were thick with people shouting, cheering and ring cow bells, right at that one spot and time where you need to push to keep running.

Turning the corner to see the finish straight ahead of me, giving it a little “sprint” finish for the cameras. What was going through my head at that point was pride. I was so proud that I had made it to the start line after all the trials and tribulations of the past 12 months, proud to have run faster than the Brooklyn Half, so signs of progress there and proud to have taken it fairly steady but still been so much faster than what I thought I could have done. This gave me so much confidence going into next week’s Chicago Marathon. Confidence that I can run those 26.2 miles, more than running them fast.

Brief roundup:

So just over 6mins faster than Brooklyn 5 months ago, I ran Cardiff in 1:36.16 and picked up my first (maybe only) Super Half stamp. This wasn’t a goal race; it was one where I was building towards something else, which is usually the case with my half marathons. On paper, 1:36 is my slowest half since 2018, but that doesn’t tell the story there.

The story where I spent 216 days out injured started almost from square one, spent the next 18 weeks building back to crossing this finish line. A finish line which now represents my start line for the next half marathon, in 5 months I had recovered 6 minutes of my half marathon time, I now have a new baseline to improve on and a new ambition to target running under 1:30 again, maybe even back under 1:25.

Thoughts on Cardiff, I enjoyed it, it was mostly well organised apart from the problems with security at the bag check. That seemed to be a 2025 problem, so hopefully a one-off? The on-course management from the volunteers, keeping pedestrians and vehicles off the course and the water stations was spot on. The finish area was great, quickly funnelled through to the medals and goodie bags, and even the bag pickup was quick, just that one blemish at the start, which I think impacted quite a lot of runners.

The question now is, how will the 2026 ballot run? Will this now make it more difficult for groups of runners and clubs to get the number of places they used to? Is that even a bad thing if that means a fairer split of bibs to new runners who are taking an interest in Cardiff? Will the increase the number of starters from next year? That could be a good thing in terms of race registrations, but given the bottleneck at back check, throwing even more runners into the mix could lead to further delays in that process if not streamlined for 2026.

On the whole, I would recommend Cardiff, it’s a good course, not particularly a fast course,e but it’s definitely not slow or hilly.