In February and March we will once again hold our well-renowned marathon training runs, which we have hosted for 25 years now and are open to ALL runners whether you are a member of an affiliated running club or not.

They are aimed at anyone training for a spring marathon and especially for first time marathon runners. This year we are holding 2 events from a new venue with a choice of distances depending on where you are in your training schedule.

The course starts at John F Kennedy RC School  which is on the outskirts of Hemel Hempstead, all the routes head straight out into the Hertfordshire countryside with picturesque views and challenging hills. The course is mainly along quiet country roads through the stunning Ashridge Forest but this year with NO canal sections.

The routes are well sign-posted with mile markers every mile, fully marshalled with water stops and our much-loved jelly baby stop!

At the end there will be well-earned tea, coffee, juice and cake waiting for you as always!

Whilst we don’t like to set an official “cut-off” time for these runs (they are not official races and are very much catering for first time marathon runners), for the benefit of our marshals out on the course and also due to the time we need to vacate the venue, we do ask that if you expect to be over 12mins per mile pace that you join one of our earlier starting groups. One of our coaches will run with a 12min+ group at 9am for the first few miles of the course with you and we are always happy to set you off even earlier if required.

Please email us prior to the day if you would like to run at our event but are worried about your finish time.

We operate a staggered start to alleviate any congestion in the first two miles of the run, so please line up at the start according to your estimated pace and do take your own timings as this is a training run and not an officially timed race.

We encourage you to sign-up on the Pre-Registration forms for these events. We will ask to see your ticket and QR code that comes with it as proof of payment – either printed off or on your phone screen.

There will be a limited number of pay on the day places.

Please arrive in good time to get ready to run. These runs are always popular and it gets busy in the 30 minutes leading up to the start!  We typically have between 300-500 runners taking part.

There is ample room to leave bags at the venue, it will be supervised but anything left is at your own risk.

After a long run if the cake wasn’t enough to put back those lost calories then we would recommend our local pub, The Steamcoach, in nearby Boxmoor which does a fantastic Sunday lunch.

If you’ve come by train, you also have The Fishery Wharf Cafe, which is just 200 metres from Hemel Hempstead rail station and does excellent food in a very relaxed environment.