Newark Half Marathon 2023

Newark Advertiser

Cooler conditions compared to last year saw the D B Wood Newark Half Marathon have several records broken.  Photojournalist Rob Currell from the Newark Advertiser, Iliffe Media documented the event and interviewed several of the participants including the race runners.  Joe Wilkinson who won the event in 2019 and set the course record finished second this year behind Daniel Connolly as both runners eclipsed the record by around a minute and a half.   Former Olympian Sonia Samuels crossed the line as the first female for the second year in a row while also beating the course record she set last year.   704 runners took part with local charities benefiting from the run.

Transcript

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00:06 Yeah, it was hard work.

00:32 I mean, I do a lot of fell running and trail running.

00:34 And I'm a bit of a road block, so first half

00:36 marathon for two years.

00:38 And yeah, ran hard, led quite a lot of the race,

00:43 and pushed hard at the end.

00:44 Just hard work with some very good runners.

00:48 Yeah, had to do that.

00:49 I did it in 2019 and won it in what was the course record

00:52 in '67 and '29.

00:54 So to go literally a minute and a half quicker than that today,

00:57 I'm delighted with.

01:00 Dan today, he deserved it.

01:02 He took the lead for most of the race.

01:04 I sat on his shoulder and at about 12 and 1/2 mile,

01:06 he just put in a little surge.

01:08 I just didn't have it in me to stay with him.

01:10 Tried to catch him going up in the last 300 meters,

01:12 but just didn't have enough left.

01:14 It's great.

01:15 He's always been well supported the whole way around.

01:17 He's always been challenging.

01:19 And there's a nice group of guys as well

01:21 that are willing to work together and help him.

01:23 I think, yeah, it was very different today,

01:25 because we had quite a strong breeze in the first five miles.

01:28 I was trying to stay relaxed and not use too much energy.

01:31 And then it started drizzling, which

01:33 is quite nice compared to last year,

01:34 because, yeah, last year was so hot.

01:38 So yeah, a lot nicer conditions.

01:39 You enjoy it a little bit.

01:40 Last year, the support was fantastic.

01:43 All along the course, gave you that last little push

01:46 to complete the race when you got to dig in the last few miles.

01:50 It's fantastic that it's a local event that's completely run

01:53 by volunteers with fantastic support from sponsors,

01:56 such as my employer, PB Woods.

02:00 Also, the fact that it raises so much for the charity

02:02 is absolutely fantastic.

02:04 And yeah, looking forward to running it again next year.

02:07 Hello.

02:09 Lee Marshall got a PB.

02:11 He was really happy.

02:12 I think he did about 114.

02:13 So I think he had a great race.

02:16 And Ollie got a PB, so he was happy as well.

02:19 I think most people beat last year's times,

02:21 because it was quite hot last year.

02:22 So I think all of us were a bit up on annuit course time.

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Transcript

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