Stroud half marathon 2026

My eldest and I recently ran Stroud half marathon. It was my eighth time running it and his fourth time. Stroud half marathon isn’t part of either the Gloucestershire AAA race series or my club’s race series, so there were only three runners from our club there. I love it, so I’ll be there every year, regardless!

One of the many good things about Stroud half marathon is that it falls on clock change day. This means not losing as much sleep for the 9am start and being able to drive there entirely in the light. For the last few years, my husband has taken part and driven us there. He’s good at finding parking spaces close to the event village on Marling School playing field. I wasn’t confident in either my abilities to find a space or my ability to park in a tight space, so I went back to my old plan of parking at Cheapside car park by the railway station.

Parking is free on a Sunday. Back in the day, I would arrive at 8am and the car park would be nearly empty. Stroud half marathon has grown a lot in the past couple of years – the actual half marathon is bigger, plus there is a 10k and a kids’ mile race. This meant that when I arrived at the car park at 8am, it was already nearly full.

It’s at least a 15 minute walk to the playing field and I was feeling a bit pushed for time. I was relieved to find short toilet queues. But the queue for registration was ridiculously long. Luckily, there were quite a lot of people helping out there, so it moved quite quickly. I dropped off two carrier bags full of old trainers because they were collecting them for recycling. Then I queued for the toilet again. This time, the queue was long and time was getting short.

My son arrived when I was in the toilet queue. He’s been struggling a bit with injury lately. He’d abandoned his plans for a sub-1:30 half marathon, but thought he could pace me to a PB. As I’d run a 7:35 min/ mile pace for 10 miles at the Yorskhire 10 mile race the previous week, I wondered if I could run a similar pace for 13 miles. If I could do this, I would get a PB. We settled on 7:40 as being a good pace.

I took my layers off and put my bag in the bag drop, which was literally on the grass with no cover. I assume this was down to the strong winds. The strong winds were also the reason there was no inflatable start/ finish line. The line was literally the timing strips on the road and a couple of flags.

Other parts of the country had been hit by storms. Our forecast was for 20mph winds at the start, increasing to 40mph later on. If it was behind us, that would be very helpful. But if it was against us, it would be challenging! Apart from the wind, the weather was lovely and sunny. Remarkably, it’s lovely and sunny every year for Stroud half marathon, despite it taking place on the last Sunday in October.

And we were off! Predictably, we started off a bit fast, as we headed past the crowds and out of Stroud. We ran our first mile in 7:33, but then we got 7:40, 7:41 and 7:40, speeding up again to 7:33, so we were on track for the PB. As we headed towards Stonehouse near the start of the race, I remembered that Stroud half isn’t actually flat! Of course, I know this, but I only every picture the big hill up the A38.

We passed the water station at Standish church at about 4.5 miles and my son picked up some water. As ever, I’d got my own water and electrolytes with me. It wasn’t hot enough for me to need to supplement them with water I struggled to drink from a paper cup. I also took three gels during the race – at four miles, eight miles and 11 miles.

This first half of the race is a lot of country lanes, but then we heard the sound of the motorway. We crossed the M5 bridge at about five and half miles. This is where we saw a rainbow. My son said it was good luck. I thought it was bad luck as it meant there was rain nearby! Luckily, the rain didn’t get to us and the sun kept shining. The wind was definitely there, but it wasn’t too problematic.

And then we were approaching the A38. “Are you ready for it?”, said my son. Then: “Here we go.” The A38 is obviously a main road. We run about 0.75 miles of it and it’s all uphill! We are kept ‘safe’ from speeding traffic by just a row of traffic cones. My son was delighted because Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill unexpectedly came on his playlist and he took this as a sign to run faster. I thought we should conserve our energy and run a bit more steadily.

I’d taken a different view with my playlist for this race. I normally have a lot of Yungblud and a lot of Levellers, with a small number of songs by other artists. But this time I’d gone for just two tracks by a lot more of my favourite artists. It was pretty good, but some of the songs I’d chosen weren’t punk enough. I find heavier, punkier tracks work best for my running.

By the time we reached the Whitminster Inn (which is not actually called any more) at the top of the hill, I was exhausted. I hoped for a reprieve with the downhill after that.

The 10k race started at the Whitminster Inn at the same time we started from the school. They were all bussed from the school to their start line.

My legs did feel a bit better with running downhill and on the flat, but at eight miles I knew I couldn’t keep chasing the PB. Our times were slipping. My son felt the same. We then ran through the huge housing estate at Oldbury, with lots of people cheering us. My legs felt better on the flat.

At about 9.5 miles, the route goes seamlessly from the housing estate into the industrial estate. Someone in the crowd said: “You’ve done the hard bit!” and my son disagreed with them. I could sense that I was running more strongly than him at this point and he told me to go. So I did. I knew he would be fine.

I passed the 11 mile marker just after the housing estate, then it was pretty much a case of running along the A419 to the finish line. Most of the time, we could run on the pavement. There were a few people out cheering. Then we were covering the same ground we’d covered on the outward run. I ran mile 10 in 7:49, mile 11 in 8:08, mile 12 in 8:12 and mile 13 in 7:53.

The final stretch is a long, gradual climb to the finish line (which of course I couldn’t see because there was no arch). I kept checking my watch – a third of a mile to go, a quarter of a mile to go… There were loads of crowds at this point. I was overtaking some of the 10k runners and some of the half marathon runners.

I crossed the line in 1:42:46. Not a PB, but a Stroud PB. I was 44th female out of 453 and seventh in my age category. It doesn’t matter how fast I run it, I’m always sixth or seventh in a my age category at Stroud (whereas I was third in Birmingham, which is a much bigger event). Historically, Stroud was always my fastest course. I got PBs at Stroud in 2017, 2023 and 2024. But I think Cheltenham is a faster course now, since the racecourse has been taken out.

I picked up my bottle of water and my medal and waited for my son. He finished about five minutes behind me and has concluded he’s actually going to rest, get some physio and start going to the gym, so he can get off the injury rollercoaster.

It was another good race and I’ll be back next year!