Market Harborough half marathon is a great race!  The weather this year was absolutely awful but clearly the organisers have no sway over the elements so I’m going to review this on the way it would have been with better weather on things like the local support aspect (which I know from previous years is usually great). This review is for the half marathon distance.

And if you don’t like a hilly race, this one definitely isn’t for you! 

Pros

• Lovely route with fabulous marshals (local support thin on the ground this year because of the awful weather but it’s usually brilliant)
• Good aid stations (four on the half route) with water at first and last and water and Clif blocks at second and third)
• Free photos (with the caveat that at the point of writing this I haven’t seen them yet)
• Tech T-shirt
• Free post race massage 
• Well organised
• Pacers available 
• I can’t mark them down on lack of local support this year because the weather was atrocious. I know that in previous years local support especially through the town has been brilliant.

Cons

• I wish the medal (which is good) wasn’t a generic medal for the 5k, 10k and half marathon. Just a different ribbon would be nice to differentiate between distance run
• The half marathon route doesn’t have any toilets along the route. Just one somewhere around half way would be nice in future years. 
• No goodie bag at the end, not even water and a banana.

Overall, a great race which was unfortunately affected by the rain and wind this year. Definitely a race I’d recommend.