The Sheffield Half Marathon is a yearly marathon that takes place with many competitors. It was originally introduced in 1982 when the starting line was in Hillsborough near the Sheffield Wednesday Football Stadium and it finished in Hillsborough Park. In 1991, the starting venue was changed to Don Valley Stadium and since its closure; the start has been Don Valley Bowl
The race seems to be growing more and more popular with entrants totalling 5500 plus in the last few years. The race even reached its limit number of entrants in 2011.
Image credited to The Yorkshire Post
Helen Davies was one of the 5526 runners due to run the Marathon this year. Her reasoning for running it started last year when she wanted to enter but didn’t. Also, part of the course runs at the bottom of her road where she lives on Sharrow Vale Road. Seeing and cheering on other entrants made her want to run it even more. However her main reason was to raise money for charity. Her mother has Alzheimer’s and she said, “Having experienced it first hand, it’s great to give money to a charity close to my heart.” Knowing where the money is going has in some ways motivated her to run the marathon even more.
Many people run the Half Marathon for charity and certain charities like Breast Cancer Care have members of staff that run the marathon to raise money for their charity. Tom Teeling Smyth an Executive Fundraiser for Breast Cancer Care Sheffield and a half marathon participant said, “We really appreciate anyone that runs the race because the more people that run the race the better for everyone.”
Training was obviously a big part of preparation for both of them and training for something so big is never easy. In Helen’s case perhaps she could have trained a bit more she explained but she was definitely looking forward it.
Having run the London Marathon, she wasn’t all that new to the idea of distance running. However that experience did help her prepare for this one. She said, “Long distance is also about your mental strength.” You can run and train but running the first mile and not giving up after that is the difficult part. Training your mind to want to run that far is also part of the preparation. Although it is hard it’s something you look forward to.
This year the Half Marathon was held on 6th April but cancelled due to a lack of water. However many of the participants did still run the marathon. Helen was unfortunately not one of them as she had bronchitis and had to pull out. She is looking to run the Leeds or Chester Half Marathon.
Image credited to The Telegraph
John McBride, another participant did take part in it as a replacement for his daughter. John is fairly used to marathons having run the Great North Run and Blaydon Race. In preparation for the Sheffield half he trained a bit harder over the past year.
At the start of the race he didn’t realise anything was wrong, a steward had called out there would be a 30 minute delay but nothing else seemed wrong. After 50 minutes or so there was speculation amongst the crowd that the marathon had been cancelled but people had already started to run so John started as well. He only noticed something was wrong at the first water point. He said, “…Someone had gone into Costa and got a tray full of cups of water, that I thought the cancellation might be true. This was the start of a great community event, with the people of Sheffield doing what the organisers couldn’t.”
Whether it was the fault of the Marathon organisers for not paying the water suppliers or not ordering enough or the fault of the suppliers for not providing it in time has not fully been said yet.
“Although I ran the race, it was an utter shambles. It was only the actions of the citizens of Sheffield that made the race have such a great atmosphere,” said John.
Organisers have not offered to refund the sponsors for those who did not get to run however had instead offered to give discount entry to the Chesterfield or Derby Half Marathon.
An investigation is ongoing into the reason why it was cancelled.
Sharrow Vale Mail 