MDUK's Town and Gown launches the Cambridge Festival of Running

To celebrate both races’ 10-year anniversaries, our Cambridge Town and Gown is joining forces with the TTP Cambridge Half Marathon to launch The Cambridge Festival of Running, taking place in October 2021. MDUK are also thrilled to be a National Charity Partner with the TTP Cambridge Half Marathon for the first time with places now available to join #TeamOrange and raise vital funds for MDUK

The landmark Cambridge Festival of Running will comprise of MDUK Town and Gown 10k and Junior 3k on Saturday 16th October, followed by TTP Cambridge Half Marathon on Sunday 17th October.

Both the 10k and Half Marathon routes take runners through the beautiful city of Cambridge and countless historic landmarks, with TTP Cambridge Half Marathon’s route passing through two iconic colleges of The University of Cambridge.

Cambridge Town and Gown is the autumn race of our run series, which usually takes place in October each year. The event is wheelchair accessible and a Junior 3k race is also available for 9-15 year olds. This new combined event marks the first time that TTP Cambridge Half Marathon won’t take place in spring.

Catherine Woodhead, CEO of Muscular Dystrophy UK, said:

We are delighted to be working in partnership with TTP Cambridge Half Marathon to create The Cambridge Festival of Running. 2020 has been a difficult year for charities and at MDUK we have been left with a £2.8 million funding gap – which is around half of our charitable funds to deliver research and services, lost due to cancelled fundraising activity.

“It is new partnerships like this which will help us come back stronger in 2021, and to continue the fight to beat the effects of muscle-wasting conditions. The partnership provides an exciting opportunity to join our resources with TTP Cambridge Half Marathon and elevate the 10th Cambridge Town and Gown to be the biggest and most successful one to date.

Commenting on the announcement, Adam Moffat, Event Director of the TTP Cambridge Half Marathon said:

We are thrilled to be working with MDUK to launch The Cambridge Festival of Running. Given we’re currently in a national lockdown, it felt unrealistic to arrange a mass participation event for March 2021, which is when we had initially hoped that TTP Cambridge Half Marathon 2021 would take place.

“By arranging it for October 2021 instead, we’re giving ourselves the best possible change of it going ahead and we feel very fortunate that MDUK have welcomed us for, what will be, a great weekend of running in October. We are also very grateful to both the Cambridge City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council for helping us make this happen. After such a strange year, we’re delighted to be able to finally launch our event date for 2021.