Last Sunday I ran the Weald Challenge 2018 Half Marathon with Harriers Catherine Kinder, Helen Jenkins and June Edwardes-Evans.
This is the fifth time I’ve ran this race so it’s fair to say I’m a fan of it and don’t think I can get away with not writing a race report this year! I like the non-commercialised relaxed feel, the free coffee and tea which you can drink out of the mug you’ve just earnt, home made (extremely tasty) cakes, live music, photos are freely available on the organisers website and the course scenery is spectacular. It ticks a lot of boxes and highly recommend it.
The course is measured at 13.5 miles, undulating and 75% off-road. It heads north along the Wealdway to the meeting point at Blackboys, then returns south along the Vanguard Way back to Chiddingly. Conditions were decent but a little on the warm side for me. The race was lead from start to finish by two Vegan Runners (looking far too relaxed). I was battling out between 3rd and 4th for the majority of the race but couldn’t maintain the pace. This was my first race in 9 months so although I did not quite achieve a course PB, I can’t really complain with the end result.
1st Male, Female and TWH times…
| Pos | Time | Club | |
| 1 | Dan Stent | 01:37:26 | Vegan Runners |
| 6 | Kelvin Desmoyers-Davis | 01:44:51 | Tunbridge Wells Harriers |
| 18 | Emma Dunk (1st F) | 01:52:25 | Victoria Park |
| 168 | Helen Jenkins | 02:45:47 | Tunbridge Wells Harriers |
| 169 | Catherine Kinder | 02:46:05 | Tunbridge Wells Harriers |
| 197 | June Edwardes-Evans | 02:56:03 | Tunbridge Wells Harriers |
Also congratulations to the hardcore Harriers that set off earlier in the morning and ran the 50km version of the Weald Challenge.
As you can see from this photo, I’m starting to get quite the collection of Weald Challenge mugs and getting to the point where my kitchen cupboard is running out of room!
