It was my first time running the Surrey Half and it's a race I really enjoyed.

The organisation of the event both before and during the race was top notch. It starts and finishes from Woking leisure centre which was about a 20 min walk from the town centre where there was plenty of places to park.

It's described as a fast and flat course and most of it is pretty flat but there were a few inclines along the way and I my legs certainly felt the ones closer to the finish.

The route takes you out of Woking on country lanes towards Guildford before returning back to the leisure centre. I think they said that there was around 5000 to 6000 people participating in the half marathon and this did make it feel quite crowded especially during the first half of the course where we were running in just a single lane. You had to take care not to trip on someone else and this made overtaking a little difficult.

There were plenty of Xempo pacers and I stuck with the 1:40 funbus, which pushed me to a new PB.

The local support was great, especially in those important last few miles. Your first name was printed on your race number making it easy for the crowds to shout out your name as you approached them.

There were plenty of volunteers and the leisure centre sports hall was used for the bag drop. There wasn't a huge amount going on in the event village, which was the leisure centre car park but that didn't bother me.

I would certainly consider coming back to this race another year.

My race VLOG is available to view on my YouTube channel here.