Hertfordshire Half Marathon 2018
Sunday 18th September 2018
9:30am
On Sunday, 18th November John and I ran the Hertfordshire Half Marathon with start and finish right outside the historical Knebworth House. According to Wikipedia, Knebworth House is a country house in the parish of Knebworth in Hertfordshire, England. It is a Grade II* listed building. The gardens of Knebworth are listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
This was our first-time taking part in this event. After all, it is only in its 2nd year. Since it has received rave review on the Runner’s World rating, we thought we might have a go. It is only 32 minutes’ drive from our house. We have the fortune of living near the very beautiful and scenic Hertfordshire green belt area with miles and miles of beautiful country lanes and endless green pastures. When we arrived, we were quite surprised to see this was big event with over 3,000 runners.
Having a disappointed Grand Union Half Marathon, the previous Sunday, I had absolutely no idea what my time would be. When they called out the runners from the PA system asking runners to come forward according to their target time, John and I just joined the 2:15’ group.
The entire route is open road so unlike the Grand Union Canal Half Marathon the previous Sunday, there was no mud at all. The route was closed for 3 hours to allow runners to run on the totally traffic free route. We started with a very long stretch of downhill road right outside the ground of the Knebworth House and everybody seemed to be flying down. We only hit the flat after about half a mile. Then it was a payback time to climb uphill for half a mile back to where we started because the 1st mile is a loop around the Knebworth park. It is a very hilly course with one particularly steep hill where some runners had to switch to walking but there was a fair bit of downhill too. I couldn’t keep my pace during uphills and I couldn’t make up the lost time during the downhills either. There is no win-win situation when we are talking about hill running.
I just tried to pace myself in sub 10-minute mile as much as I could. I managed to stay this way for most part of the race. When I ran past mile 7, I glanced my watch and it showed 1:06’ as opposed to 1:13’ the week before in the Grand Union Canal Half Marathon. I thought to myself: “That’s great. I have improved 7 minutes”. This had given me the incentive to keep pushing and pushing. The last mile was the hardest. It was so hilly that I couldn’t make myself hit that pace no matter how hard I tried. When my watch clocked to 12.7 miles in 2:03’ I thought I could finish in 2:07 something but the hill was just too much for me. It only became flat about 200 yards before the finish line. I crossed the finish line with a very sore gluteal in 2:09’28”. At least I had shaved off more than 5 minutes from a week ago. It turned out I was quite satisfied with my time. John finished in 2:30’07”. He had also shaved off 5 minutes from a week ago. For full results, please visit:
http://results.racetimers.co.uk/results.aspx?CId=16487&RId=2042&__s=yzrzh8horqqfz7burrhp
There are pros and cons of this event:
Pros:
- Very pretty surroundings
- Very nearly home so no need to stay at hotel the night before
- The finisher’s medal is big and beautiful
- Finisher’s technical t-shirt
- The post-race goodies are nice with bananas, vegan oat cake, muesli bars, peanut butter sachet, pampering bath salt
- Water stations every other mile
- Lovey marshals and plenty of them
- All open roads and no mud
- The road closure during the race makes it so safe and smooth to run on a totally traffic free road
- The event village has plenty of portaloos and there were stalls selling drinks, food, sportswear
- Live band playing at the event village as post-race entertainment
- Plenty of car parking
- Good baggage storage
- Professional fitness trainers leading the pre-race warm-up exercise and stretching
- Free Official Photos (free download from Facebook) !!!
Cons:
- There was no shelter at all in the entire event village and we were not allowed to go inside the Knebworth House as it is a private property. Therefore, 3,000 runners just huddled on the ground near the start line in a freezing cold temperature. Some runners (including John and I) walked back to the carpark and waited inside the car as it was just far too cold in the open area
- We waited for a long time to drive out from the Knebworth House ground to the road leading to A1M. The country lanes are very narrow with only single lane traffic. It took us 40 minutes to drive a couple of miles to A1M
- The entry fee is a whopping £34 which is £9 more expensive than the Stroud Half Marathon and Grand Union Canal Half Marathon
Will we do it again next year? Let’s see 😊. The free official photos are really good.
