Bit late on the report I know!
In July and August there are not many half marathons around so Dartford didn’t have much competition. As my target marathon is early September I needed some races so I headed over to Dartford.
Only an hour drive and good signage getting there with ample parking. Price was not too expensive as I don’t remember what it even was, so couldn’t have been that much. The race also included the Kent county championship so I knew there would be plenty of fast boys at the front end.
Standing on the start line I heard people talking about how hard the race was with the hills. I later found out this is completely correct, some of the hills were brutal!! Nevertheless as the start and finish were at the same place what goes up had to go down so you did get some benefit.
As I went through the approx 10 mile mark I made sure to thank the marshalls, something I make sure to do in every race to every marshall if I can. It was just a shame I heard one of the marshalls say ‘that was the first person to say thanks’ as a was running off, would have been fiune if I was leading but I was far from that.
Glad I had my Garmin on as just as your coming to the end you take a detour off to the right and have to complete a little loop that would have been pretty demoralising if you weren’t expecting it. The last 400 metres are run on an athletic track which made for a nice finish line atmosphere and my 9 year old nephew ran the last 200 metres with me. At the end you got a medal, mars bar, bottle of water and a banana. Also showers at the end.
All in all I’d say this was a pretty good race at a time when there are few races about, wouldn’t be looking for a pb here though but a quick supported training run instead.