Coventry Half Marathon 2012

Hello,

I live in Canada and am coming to the UK for a wedding in a couple of weeks.  I have been training for my first ever half marathon, but the race I am training for happens while I am going to be in England.  I still really want to run a race and the Coventry half is close to where I am staying, and while I am there.  I have read that it is quite challenging with some really big hills.  Has anyone ever run it?? What kind of hills are we talking about?? I live in a pretty hilly place, so hills are nothing new to me, and I do hill training once a week on top of it, but I'm still a bit worried.

Is this a beginner friendly race?  Can someone tell me how steep the incline of these hills are and how long they are?? Are they consistent throughout the race? How many are there? Any help would be appreciated!!

I'm so excited to visit your beautiful country, I love it!!

Thanks so much!

Hi CG28,

I would say this is a pretty beginner friendly race, I ran it last year and I am not a beginner and found that it was a fair mix of club and non-club runners.  If you live some where hilly I doubt you will struggle with the hills.  I have reread my review from last years race as I couldn't remember any horrendous hills and I did comment that its either going up or down the whole way, but none of the hills were too steep.  I wouldn't say this is a race that you specifically need to hill train for, so as your incorporating hill work into your schedule already you will be more than fine!  

The stand out feature from last years race was the unseasonably warm weather, the chances of that happening again in October are very slim.  All in all its a pretty nice course for your first go at the distance, especially as Coventry isn't known for its scenery its a real mix of town and rural scenery. I would give it a whirl if your in the area anyway.

Hope that helps!