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Warrington Half Marathon Blog

I have always said that there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing and preparation. The Warrington Half Marathon this year did it’s absolute best to prove me wrong about this, after what has to be the wettest run I have ever competed in. Warrington Half is also the English Half Marathon, so which such a claim you can imagine our surprise when our entry packs arrived with no numbers, no timing chips and no park passes as they expected everyone to register before the race.

Unfortunately given we don’t live in Warrington, this meant for an even earlier start on the Sunday morning and a 6am get up! At this stage we were starting to question how good of a run this would be, and then we saw the weather and nearly went back to bed. Not be beaten though, we got ourselves in the car and headed off. Once we got there and got to the registration building things started to look up.

The organisers had enlisted the army cadets to run the registration, which saw everything happen quickly and efficiently and before we knew it we were on the start line. The rain refused to stop and it got to the point that we ran several sections of the course in ankle deep water, and the through the mud as the course detoured through one of the local parks.

The run itself is designed to take in some good scenery and has good variation with road and parks. However, it was poorly thought through with certain park sections getting so tight, that runners were slowed to a walk. For this reason I would suggest that this is not the race to do if you are after a PB, however, two of the runners I was with managed to get their PB on this course. I even had to concede defeat to my girlfriend who beat my 1:49:42 by 42 seconds, the first time she has beaten me. Needless to say I am very proud but also getting ready to turn up the heat on training in preparation for the Wilmslow Half in March (I beat her by 7 minutes there)!!