What an amazing event the EHM is, well done to the organisers who planned the route for the half.
Registering for this event is done easily on line, your number and chip is sent through the post.
We arrived at 7am as my partner Garry Biddle was the 2:10 pacer. There is plenty of free parking around and we were only 5 minutes from the start.
There were plenty of toilets around so didn't have to que for long which is very unusual. As Garry is a pacer we did not need to use the baggage area so I'm not able to comment on this.
Love the start outside the Golden Gates. You run down to the end of the road and turn left going through the town centre into the countryside. It's a gradual uphill until mile 5 to 5.5. It then goes up again on a steeper hill and then comes the killer hill which goes from mile 6 to mile 7.2. After getting your breath back you are rewarded with massive down hills to mile 12. The last 1.2 miles goes back to the town centre, taking you through the Warrington Wolves Rugby ground. It's an amazing site when you turn right for the last time and see the fabulous Golden Gates at the top with the red carpet. The finish line however was quite confusing as to which chip timing mat was the correct one. It was very difficult to get over the finish line as there were so many runners there queuing to get over it.
The water stations had bottled water which I prefer to cups as they are more user friendly, Lucazade and gels.
It took time to get to the amazing medals and lovely goody bags. The que for the T-shirt was horrendous as the free beer stall was right next door to it!!!! Everyone was jumping in as it was so wide nobody seemed to know who was queuing for which one. This really is a shame as I ran this race in 2016 and realise there were roughly 2,000 more runners this year but did not have any of the finish line problems.
We stayed to watch the Fun run that was started by the town Mayor, this was fantastic to see all the adaults running with their children.
I have to say that this is one of my favourite races, gaining a PB here in 2016 and ran it with the 2:10 pacers Garry (my partner) and Del this year. Everyone that had run with the 2:10 pacers were so grateful to them at the finish line as it's not easy to pace yourself up the first 7:2 miles before trying not to go to fast and kill yourself on the easier down hills.
Massive thank you to all the marshals, organisers and everyone behind the scenes for a truly fantastic event. I'm sure I will be back in 2018 and look forward to see just how the medal can be improved as this years medal is sensational.