Apperley Quarter Marathon 2025

My husband and I, along with lots of members of our running club, recently took part in Apperley Quarter Marathon. It was the last race of the year in our club’s off-road race series. Apperley Quarter Marathon is based in the village of Apperley, near Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire. A quarter marathon is 6.55 miles, which is just over a 10k – 6.2 miles.

Apperley Quarter Marathon has been going since the 1980s. It is a huge community event organised by a small community, with homemade medals, cakes and local produce.

This year, it coincided with Storm Amy – the first storm of the season.

It was also on a Saturday, which meant I missed parkrun. I don’t miss parkrun ever! My husband chose to run a steady parkrun beforehand, but it did affect his race, particularly with the strong wind.

The race started and ended at Apperley Cricket Club. Registration was inside the pavilion. Parking was on a field right by the cricket club. There was no bag drop, but it was easy enough to leave stuff in the car and go back there. In fact, we had to sit in the car for 15 minutes before the race because it was SO COLD.

There were portable toilet cubicles outside and runners could also use the toilets inside the cricket club. The queues for both got quite long, but a lot of people were happy to queue in the warm.

There was a kids’ race (‘Kiddython’) before the race, which seemed popular and well supported.

Apperley Quarter Marathon started at 11am precisely. Timing was once again provided by local company, Lush Timing. It was a chip finish, but not a chip start, so the timing relied on the race starting on time. The whistle to start the race took a lot of people by surprise. And we were off!

We started by running around the cricket field, before going out onto the road. The cricket field was overgrown, uneven and with a lot of cowpats. That summed up most of the route.

There was a short downhill, a short uphill, then a long downhill. It basically took us all round the perimeter of the cricket ground and when we reached a mile, we were pretty much back at the entrance to the cricket club. Between one mile and two miles, there was lots of evidence of Storm Amy, with sticks all over the road. Just after two miles, there was a water station and I did my best to slurp a few mouthfuls from a paper cup.

Then we headed off road and into a field. We were running through fields for quite a long time. It was largely flat, but uneven and with lots of cowpats. We’d had rain overnight, but it hadn’t been enough to make it muddy. The grass was slightly slippy in parts though. My husband and I were wearing trail shoes, as most people were. But one of my friends was wearing carbon plated road shoes. I think ordinary road trainers might have been the best choice for a race which was pretty much half road and half trail.

At one point it was quite narrow, but I was able to overtake and pick the pace up. I could see my husband in front of me. I wasn’t going to catch him, but he wasn’t getting away either.

Twice when I ran from one field to the next, the wind seemed to catch me and nearly blow me over! As we approached four miles, we had an out and back field – we ran along the bottom of it in one direction, then had a bit of a climb and ran back along the top of it.

If memory serves me correctly, there was then a short uphill onto a road, followed by a very open field where the wind was so strong it felt like I couldn’t breathe.

I’d broken my own rules two days before the race and gone to speed endurance training with the club. I don’t usually do hard training just before a race. At training, I realised that I hadn’t fully recovered from Bourton half marathon and could really feel my hamstrings. At about 4.5 miles into Apperley Quarter Marathon, the left one was so uncomfortable I wondered if I was going to have to walk the rest of the race! But it eased and I kept running.

I walked to drink some water properly at 4.5 miles, then it was basically climbing all the way to the finish line. It wasn’t particularly steep, but it was long, gradual and energy sapping, particularly combined with the wind. I don’t think I’ve ever run in such strong wind. I certainly haven’t raced in such strong wind.

Before the race, I’d thought a quarter marathon is ‘basically a 10k’. Which of course it is. Until you’re battling a storm and you’ve run 5.8 miles and you realise you’ve got 0.75 miles left, not 0.4. Then it’s quite disheartening and suddenly feels a lot longer than 10k.

But I was soon back on the cricket field, running round it and crossing the finish line.

I finished in 51:57 and second FV50. That was only 24 seconds slower than last year, when we didn’t have a storm (although the weather wasn’t great).

We were given a bottle of water and a banana. Medals were all homemade with lots to choose from. This year’s theme was bees and flowers. I’m an absolute sucker for knitted animals, so I chose a medal which was a knitted bee. We were also given a few spring bulbs to plant – for more flowers and to hopefully encourage more bees next year. There was the BIGGEST table of cakes, with all runners able to take a cake for free.

Apperley Quarter Marathon is a fantastic event. I’m pretty sure I’ll be back next year, but hopefully the wind won’t be!