At the end of last month, 2469 women and 2161 men turned the 40th Windsor Running Festival into a huge success after two enforced cancellations in the previous four years. The bias in the female finishers overall is easily explained by the Windsor Women's 10K run on Saturday (28 September).

This year 1,028 women were shown a clean pair of super-shoe heels by blind runner Rachael Elliott (Newbury AC) in 38:43 – pictured above, with her guide runner checking the time! Rachael – a W45 runner and paracyclist – lost her sight after a stroke in 2018 and now mainly enjoys parkruns with a guide runner.

The Sunday event is the Windsor Half Marathon and this year there were 3,602 finishers in four and a half hours. The swiftest were Jonathan Escalante-Phillips (Cambridge & Coleridge AC, 1:06:00) and W45 Lesley Locks (Aldershot, Farnham & District AC, 1:24:31).

Perhaps you missed out this year or you simply can't get enough of the Windsor Running Festival double-header. In that case, you'll be pleased to know that Early Bird entries with a 15% discount are now being taken for the Windsor Women's 10K on Saturday 27 September and the Windsor Half Marathon on Sunday 28 September 2025.

The generous reduction reduces the Windsor Women's 10K entry fee to £25.92 for club runners (£27.60 unaffiliated). The Windsor Half Marathon can be entered for £35.70 or £37.40 according to status and this offer is good until 31 December 2024.

Windsor Women's 10K and Windsor Half Marathon offer fantastic value races in a truly memorable setting in and around Windsor Great Park, within sight of Windsor Castle. The Windsor Women’s 10K is open to women of all ages and abilities, starts and finishes on the impressive Long Walk and passes the Copper Horse statue, the Royal Lodge, and the Jubilee Statue before the fast, downhill finish toward the imposing royal residence.

Windsor Half Marathon ventures further into the Royal Estate and is a challenging race not to be missed. For historic sites, a touch of the Royal spirit, and a hugely supportive community atmosphere, there is possibly no other race quite like it in the runABC South area.

Results and reports are at the runABC South race listing here (10K) and here (half marathon).

Photo courtesy of Running4Women on Facebook