Royal Parks Half Marathon 2012 - my race thoughts and pictures

Last month I started my 'marathon of two halfs.'  I ran the Stockholm Half Marathon and now it was time for part 2, the Royal Parks Half Marathon 2012 in London.  Beautiful weather today and a big turnout - the Royal Parks Half Marathon is a popular event!

Royal Parks Half Marathon 2012 start

After a Military Fitness warm up, the Royal Parks Half Marathon started on the edge of Hyde Park with people colour coded into pens based on expected finish time.  Runners then headed off into central London and returned to Hyde Park for the second half of the race.  The London sights were inspirational and the harder / less interesting running in the park was compensated for by huge crowds and lots of noise!

The Royal Parks Half Marathon route map is here:

Lucozade Sport and bottled water were given out on the course and I managed to break 2 hours which I was pleased with (though only beat 2 hours by a few seconds!!) A nice wooden medal, goodie bag, text confirmation of time and a technical t-shirt that had a big Royal Parks logo on the back were interesting bonuses.

It was also nice that my family could track me round the course using the Royal Parks Half Marathon app.

Really enjoyed this race and also managed to raise £400 for the Royal Parks Foundation too :-)