Saucony Cambridge Half Marathon - 800 places available now

Public entries for the 2014 Saucony Cambridge Half Marathon are now on sale - click here. Following the pre-registered athlete entries, there will be 800 places available.

The Saucony Cambridge Half Marathon was first launched in 2012 and has grown in size and profile since. The 2014 event will be the biggest yet, and there is a strong desire to grow the size of the event in future years to accommodate the demand from primarily local runners.

The event is dedicated to raising funds for Cancer Reseach UK, who have benefited from nearly a quarter of a million pounds of fund raising by Saucony Cambridge Half Marathon runners in the last two years.

Claire Marmion from CRUK said: “Cancer Research UK has spent over £43 million in Cambridge alone last year on some of the UKs leading scientific research.

“Our research has seen survival rates double in the last 40 years and we are making some astonishing progress. However the harsh facts are that more than 1 in 3 of us will develop cancer in our lifetimes and so there is much much more for us to do.”

Lucy Gossage, the 2013 Ironman UK and Ironman Wales winner and clinical research fellow at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute, will race the Saucony Cambridge Half Marathon again in 2014.

She said: “I’ll hopefully go quicker than last year, that’s always the goal. I got a deal that if I do 1hr17 I get to commentate so I’ve got some focus! It’s good timing, it’s a month or so before Ironman South Africa so it will work quite well.”

Having persuaded work colleagues to get involved with the Half Marathon, she added: “It’s brilliant, so many people at work do it, I even got my boss, who is the oncology professor, doing it. There’s a really nice camaraderie in the Institute.”

Event organiser, Adam Moffat was quick to praise local partners for helping to establish the Saucony Cambridge Half Marathon as such a popular and successful event. He said: “We’d like to thank the local council for their enthusiasm and support for this event, and without our sponsors it could not have developed at the speed that it has.

“We have aspirations to move to a one-lap course in order to accommodate more entrants in the future, but essentially what makes this event popular is the city centre course and the great support all the way around. We are looking forward to 9 March already and sharing a journey to the start line with all of 2014 runners.”

The Saucony Cambridge Half Marathon starts and finishes on Midsummer Common in Cambridge and takes place on 9 March 2014. The event is supported by Cambridge City Council, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge Property Lettings, Progress and BBC Cambridgeshire.