Race Date: Sunday 27th April 2025
Race Report by Katelyn McKeown
How to describe Coventry Half Marathon? Well, it’s a half marathon and it takes place in Coventry. It’s a Run For All event, but somewhat cheaper than some of their other offerings; I can’t remember exactly how much but let’s just say £35 + £3.80 processing fee for the sake of the argument; compare this with the £31 + £3.10 processing fee for the Sheffield Half and you, and I, will realise that this comparison hasn’t quite gone the way I was expecting, but hopefully no-one will notice.
Well then, what do they do with this mighty saving of plus £4.70, I hear you ask? I’ll tell you what they don’t do – they don’t post your number out to you. No, by making the race + £4.70 cheaper than other events, they demand that you should collect your running number yourself from Coventry’s premier (only) independent running shop, imaginatively named Coventry Runner. Who’s going to travel all the way to Coventry to collect their running number the day before the race? Nobody, that’s who. Luckily I am very well connected in the city of spires, as I hail from the very place, and if you check it out Man Like Mobeen series 5, episode 4 (Boy Like Mobeen) on i-player, the unhappy childhood home he removes his baby sister from is the illustrious spot where my running number was collected to; this information is not strictly relevant or necessary for the enjoyment of this report, but an interesting digression nonetheless, I’m sure you will all agree.
So I set off from Mobeen’s house on the day in question, Sunday 27th April, and, the thing about Coventry is, it’s a smaller place than Sheffield and by some weird coincidence, things are also closer together; it should also be noted that it takes less time to get places, so I walked into town and as there was noone else around apart from a few Saturday night casualties and various people in running shoes, it was fairly easy to identify where to go and then go there.
Bag drop was in a Coventry University building and was an average table-top affair, but the toilets were palatial; row upon row of gleaming white porcelain; compared to queuing for the loos outside Sheffield town hall I felt like a celebrity in a VIP lounge.
The race was a standard offering – 13.1 miles of roads, with runners, marshals, people shouting stuff at you, very much like a night out in Cov except the marshals weren’t dangerous and the people running were doing it because they “wanted to” rather than because they were being chased. The run goes out to Allesley Village before turning and heading back into town, and anyone from the area would want me to point this out because Allesley Village is a nice place and therefore proves that Coventry does have a middle-class.
It was a very hot day and my mind wasn’t fully in the game – Manchester Marathon was on and some other race, can’t remember what, but I had set up my trackers before I went off and I couldn’t help wondering how everyone was getting on, and thinking it was probably a total mess. The sun was getting higher and stronger into the second half and the pavement was throwing up relentless heat, sending discomfort through my feet and up my legs; I was transported back to Manchester Marathon last year where I had struggled through a gruelling second half, even though it wasn’t that hot, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to get home and watch other people suffering, rather than it being me: Stupid Cov Half, stupid running.
As I’m sure people experienced at the other (minor) races on the day, it started to feel like a bit of a war zone with sirens, ambulances, people hitting the deck; I resisted joining the affray and dragged my ass to what is billed as a spectacular finish line at the Cathedral, but honestly, if you’re from Cov, you’ve pretty much seen it all before and probably wouldn’t mind too much if someone knocked it down.
I finished in 02:01:19 so absolutely nailed the sub 02:01:20 I was aiming for.
I was wearing my promotional 2025 small park Big Run t-shirt (get signed up now on SIEntries), so took the opportunity to harass someone into taking a picture of me with the famous St Michael’s Victory Over the Devil statue. I wanted to ask her to make sure she got the still more famous devil’s willy into the pic but the person she was supporting seemed to have had a bad day and was crying so after getting her to take five or six shots to get my best side, I let her go.
I sauntered homewards, opting to go the longer way over Anarchy Bridge and Spencer Park. I was dying to get back and check out what was happening in the quagmire of heatwave marathon running, but I spotted a fellow runner and decided to be friendly and enter into conversation:
Me: How did you get on?
Him: Not very good. Over two hours. I normally do two.
Me: Oh, what did you get?
Him: Two twenty
Me: What, two twenty seconds?
Him: No, two twenty minutes.
Me: Oh. Yeh, you did have a bad day at the office.
Always good to make time for your comrades and if they’re having a bad day, it could always get worse right? As my dad always says, a problem shared is a problem doubled. I’ll have to keep my eye out for him at Leamington Half in a few weeks’ time and see if I can ruin that for him too.
Results:
The race was won by Adam Hudson of Sutton and District AC in 01:10:22. The first female finisher was Kelly Edwards of Leamington Cycling and Athletic Club in 01:20:38.
Striders Results:
