Cardiff Half Marathon 16th October 2011

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However, for the two Striders taking part in the race, Jo Wilkie and Nikki Smith, just getting into the start area and across the start line proved to be a major hurdle!

With 15,000 runners plus spectators crammed into a street far too narrow to accommodate a race of this size, a long wait was inevitable and for Nikki it was over 4 minutes before she managed to finally get onto the course whilst for Jo, the sheer volume of spectators along the barriers meant that it was impossible to get onto the course and it was only after the gun went off that she was able to scale the barrier and make it onto the course more than 5 minutes after the official start.

Stuck in a pack of slower paced-runners, all Jo could do was to weave through the slower paced runners on her way to a very steady first mile! However, a few miles in she found herself ticking along at a decent pace and felt so comfortable that she was able to pick it up in the last two miles and finish strong, feeling like there was much more to come.

Jo’s time was 01:39.04 which given the less than ideal situation at the start was very pleasing.

Nikki had an impressive race too – in spite of the chaos at the start, she managed a chip time of 01:38:06 which was within two second of her PB and put her in the top ten for her age group.

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