Since withdrawing from South Downs Way 50 back in January, I’ve focuses my training on Cambridge Half. I was excited to race a half again and it was the right distance to juggle training miles with running with my clients.

I did four training runs a week and topped out at 40 miles for a couple of weeks. It was all going well. I finished my last threshold session 10 days before the race feeling strong then went away for a few days for my birthday.

I came back to London on the Monday with the unwanted gift of a very sore throat and spent a lot of the week in bed. It didn’t look like it was going to be my day, so I shrugged, focused on the positives (spending a day with some of my favourite people and getting to run, just maybe not that fast).

Come race morning I was chilled out. I’d resigned to the fact that I might not fly round, so nothing was stressing me: not a cancelled train and disruption to the service, not a forgotten gel, not losing all my friends 10 mins before the race. I shrugged, wandered over to the start, thought I’d see them at the finish and got ready to start running.

10, 9,8,7, I found Laura and Cathy, wished them well and shuffled forwards.

6,5,4,3 I started to eye up the people in my pen – you’re from the last wave, make way.

2,1,0 I pressed my Garmin and started running.

My legs felt good, so I let them tick along. We headed out through the city and I tried not to look at my watch too much. I laughed with a runner beside me when we’d both misread a pacer’s flag as saying 3:45 instead of 1:45 and then I made my way past him.

I stopped for a wee in a bush, looking out to check that pacer didn’t go past, then carried on running. My watch beeped for mile 4 in 7:50 including wee stop and I thought that maybe things might be OK after all.

I saw my parents and friend Helen at mile 5, handed them my gloves and plodded on feeling strong. I laughed when a runner next to me said to his mate: “That hill is coming up”. LOLZ, Cambridgeshire hills.

I found a man to tuck in behind through some of the windier bits, though he wasn’t much bigger than me. Had a gel from a feed stop and decided that it was time to start pushing.

There comes a point in a race when it’s easy to talk yourself into easing off, to finish it comfortably and not push it. There’s no shame in this, run how you like. I got to that point around mile 9. I could have eased off and come in under 1:45.

But that wasn’t the race I’d trained for. 10 days before I’d said that 1:42 would do quite nicely thank you. And that was still on the cards. So I pushed on. I kept going and, despite my stomach and my legs compelling me to stop in the last mile, I finished the way that I wanted to.

I crossed the line in 1:41:48. I clocked an official PB at half-marathon, and then I got to hang out with my mates, go to the pub and eat cake. Despite many things not going to plan in the days and hours before, it was a very good day.

Thanks Cambridge and thanks to my Team Rainbow buddies for an excellent weekend.

Cambridge Half was fast, flat and well organised with one of the best bag returns I’ve encountered. We all paid for our race entries and if you’re keen to run next year, sign up to the pre-release list as places go quickly.