MY CAMBRIDGE HALF WITH PHOEBE GRIST
Published: 03/03/2026 | By: Alex Courbat
Phoebe Grist will be the first to tell you she was never a running girl. For years, the gym was her happy place. Running, as far as she was concerned, was what happened at school when you were dragged out for cross country and ended up trailing at the back, desperately counting down the seconds until it was over. So the idea that she'd one day be lining up for a half marathon, deep in training for a full marathon, and co-leading a run club with up to 80 devoted members? Yeah, not so long ago, that would have seemed absolutely laughable.
But life has a wonderful way of surprising you. It all started during COVID, when Phoebe came home from almost a year of travelling to find the world had ground to a halt. With no job and nowhere to be, she threw herself into exercise – first at home, then more and more. She was happy, she was fit, and she was firmly a gym girl. Then, about two years ago, a friend casually mentioned a run club.
"I was like, no, I can't do that," she laughs. "I've never run anything before. I was the girl at school who was at the back of cross country." She sat on the idea for a few weeks before deciding, on one particular Sunday morning, to just go for it. She dragged a friend along, rocked up to a club called Plod Squad, and ran her very first 5K. "I was so proud of myself. I was buzzed. I just got hooked." And she never really looked back.
What she absolutely did not expect, though, was quite how much that one Sunday morning would go on to reshape her entire life. Because Plod Squad, it turned out, was run by a group of lads who'd started it with their mates. One of those lads is now her partner. Two years on, she's fully involved in running the club alongside him, and what began as a nervous one-off has become the cornerstone of her week, her social life, and everything she's become as a runner.
"If you came along to one of our runs, you'd just understand it," she says, and you can hear the genuine warmth in it. "It's like a family." The club meets twice a week – a 5K and 10K on Wednesdays, a 5K on Sundays – and the range of people it brings together is nothing short of brilliant. The youngest member is 16 and regularly wins parkrun on Saturday mornings. At the other end of the spectrum, Phoebe's partner's mum, who is in her 60s and has rheumatoid arthritis, started out barely managing a single lap. Now she runs two 5Ks a week. "There's no sense of competition," Phoebe says. "It's just this lovely environment. Everyone gets on and enjoys it and comes down for a social as much as for the exercise."
The community side of things, she admits, took her completely by surprise. When she first turned up, she figured it might be a casual, occasional thing. Running had exploded all over social media by then – all fresh trainers and sub-four-minute kilometres – and she was curious to see what the fuss was about. But the version of running she found at Plod Squad was something refreshingly different. Something inclusive. Something for everyone.
And it was the people around her who nudged her towards bigger, bolder goals. Her partner ran a 100K ultra trail race last year. Friends at the club tackle ultramarathons like it’s just something you do at the weekend. And somewhere along the way, Phoebe started thinking – if they can do that, surely I can race too? So 2026 became the year she decided to really go for it, setting her sights on the Cambridge Half as a prep race before taking on the Manchester Marathon later this year.
But there's another reason behind this push, and it's one that means a great deal to her. Last year, Phoebe was diagnosed with endometriosis. In December, she had surgery. And as the new year rolled in, she made a decision – she was going to use 2026 to prove something. Not necessarily to anyone else, but to herself, and to every other woman living with the same condition. "I really wanted to prove to myself and to other women that you are capable," she says, with a conviction that's hard not to find infectious. "You can have a chronic illness and you can still go out there and do hard things. It just felt like the right time to say this was going to be my year."
Training in the weeks after surgery was, by her own admission, pretty humbling. She'd run the Cambridge 10K back in October in 52 minutes – a time she's rightly happy about – but returning to training in January, just four weeks post-op, she found herself slower than she'd been before. The fitness she'd worked so hard to build felt frustratingly distant. "You lose it quite quickly," she says. "But what I've realised is that you gain it back just as quick." And then last week, she ran 16 kilometres. Her longest run ever. The moment, she says, where everything finally clicked back into place. "It's been a hard few weeks up until this point. But it was so nice to get there and just think – this was worth it. I will be okay."
Her advice to anyone struggling to hold onto their motivation through the slog of a training block? Typically no-nonsense. "I live by the fact that if you want it, you go and get it. Have that in the back of your mind when you're on a long run and it's pouring with rain and the wind's in your face and you're only 5K in with 10 still to go. Remember your why. Because if you focus on that, you'll do it."
Come race day in Cambridge, Phoebe is going to have every reason to draw on that. Her mum and dad – "my biggest supporters in everything I do, they don't miss anything" – will be on the sidelines, and she predicts, with great affection, that her mum will absolutely be in tears. A big group of Plod Squad members will be there too, some running, some cheering their heads off. And one of her clubmates – a faster runner who could easily go on ahead – has quietly said that she wants to cross the finish line together. "That means loads to me," Phoebe says, and you can tell she really means it. "To celebrate that success together – I honestly cannot wait."
The nerves are there, of course. They always are when you’re stepping into the unknown. She ran 19 kilometres this week, with the half marathon ahead of her on Sunday – and that final stretch of distance still feels like uncharted territory. “It’s always the unknown, isn’t it? I’m scared of the unknown. But I think that’s a good thing too.”
For someone who, not so long ago, couldn’t imagine running a 5K, the fact that the unknown now stretches to 21 kilometres – and eventually 42 – says everything about how far Phoebe has already come, and so little about how far she might go.
For now, though, the focus is on the City of Perspiring Dreams this Sunday. We’ll be cheering you on from the sidelines, Phoebe. And if you want to follow her journey too, head to @sportsdirectrunning – the first episode drops soon.
