Lovely half marathon along two arms of the grand union canal. It is a very picturesque race through the countryside. It isn't all off road apart from a couple of road crossings but those were marshalled brilliantly and I didn't have to wait at any of them. 

I thought the race would be flat, but my strava disagreed!  Most of the inclines were sharp steps around locks. After half way the route flattens out but the towpath does get less runable. Unfortunately for us this year we had a strong headwind on the second arm (can't blame the organisers for that!)

Runners were sent off in waves of 50 based on start time. Somehow I ended up in the last wave (see below) despite aiming for sub 1:40. Having looked back at my application I can't see where I could have entered a predicted finish time! Whilst I was clearly in the wrong wave (along with a guy who ran a 1:35 from our wave) it seemed like the seeding worked well and there were noticeable gaps between the waves, even after 6 miles.

Only water at the water stations, but that's fine for a half for me. 

Whilst I wouldn't say that this was a course for PB chasing, I did end up with one!

Also the medal is a big one. Great for those who like a bit of bling!

Only a couple of negatives:

A few more marshalls would have been nice as there were some long stretches without one. Whilst they weren't needed for navigation if you injured yourself and wanted some help you could have a long walk. 

The mile markers were laughable - most came about 0.1-0.2 miles after the mile point with mile 12 coming at 12.7! 

For some reason I ended up in the last wave (despite finishing in the top 40) so spent most of the run overtaking people on the verge of the towpath. That being said, I like overtaking people so it wasn't all bad. It just meant waiting at the start in the cold for 30 mins after the front runners left.

Really minor complaint, but the goodie bag was a bottle of water, a banana, a gel (not sure I want on after a race!) and a foil blanket. Some snacks would have been great!

All in all a great race which I would recommend, especially on the early bird deal where it cost just £10.