Nearly 2,500 runners finished the Fleet Half Marathon on Sunday 16 March 2025 – double the number who contested the post-Covid resumption race in 2022 – and all had finished in less than three hours.

Fleet Half Marathon, organised by Fleet & Crookham AC, has been used by thousands of runners since 1982 as a pre-London Marathon assessment of form and the conditions this year were just about perfect for a fitness test.

Fi Johns summed up the race on social media: "Fantastic race today, great crowd, lovely camaraderie between runners, good weather and awesome set up…well done and THANK YOU to the organisers."

This year's race was dedicated to the memory of David Holdway, the Start Director for many years, with funds being raised for the British Heart Foundation. David would have approved of the increased level of participation, partly due to the nomination of the Fleet Half Marathon to host the fifth and final England Athletics Age-Group Masters half marathon qualification race for the international representative race in Swansea on 8 June 2025.

Five men beat 69 minutes this year and the top three were Dean Williamson (1:07:41), Adam Baker (1:08:34) and Chris Davies (1:08:37). The leading M40 master was Barry Stephenson (1:09:20).

The women's race saw six inside 80 minutes. W35 master Nina Griffith (1:14:44) took the victory ahead of Megan Davis (1:15:35) and Louise Small (1:16:32). The next two finishers were also age-category winners: W40 Sarah Holt (1:17:37) and W55 Karima Harris (1:17:45).

Nearly 500 runners beat 90 minutes on the proven fast course and more than 1,800 finished in less than two hours with the experienced Pace Makers helping many competitors to personal best times on the gently undulating but fast course.    

Results and previous reports are available at the runABC South race listing here.

Photo courtesy Fleet Half Marathon website