Running the Chessington Valentine’s 10k
A fast 10k loop in Surrey with excellent PB potential
The Chessington Valentine’s 10k is an annual road race taking place on the Sunday around Valentine’s Day. On a mildly undulating course (187ft total elevation gain) setting off from Chessington School you run on pavement and open roads in a loop that takes you past Epsom Common and Horton before rejoining Leatherhead Road for an uphill battle to the finish line at the school.
Organised by 26.2 Road Runners, this is a popular event and a great way to test your fitness after getting back into training following the Christmas Break.
So if you’re thinking of signing up to the next Chessington Valentine’s 10k, here’s what you can expect.
Pre-race Organisation
Entries for the Chessington Valentine’s 10k open around November and you can sign-up through the 26.2 Road Runners website. The whole process is pretty quick and easy, and you’ll receive a confirmation email right afterwards.
The Chessington Valentine’s 10k does have a Facebook page, where regular updates are posted, so if you’d like to keep on top of what’s happening you really need to follow that page as there is no further communication by email… which caused a bit of an issue in 2023 when the race start time was put back an hour to 08:00 and the only ways you’d have known is if you either follow the race Facebook page, happen to have gone back to the race website or been told by a friend.
While the intentions were admirable for putting the race back an hour so that there was less traffic to contend with, it did make a lot of people upset that the change was made after bibs had gone on sale.
To add to this, in the 2023 event there was also major confusion about the official timing setup. The race was initially billed as chip-to-chip, but in an apparent effort to save on costs this was changed to gun-to-chip, meaning anyone not starting on the start line would have up to 30 seconds added to their official time. Again, not great to have to roll back on something after bibs had gone on sale and another source of angst among many in the local running community.
So while the race signup process was fine and the Facebook page informative, changing what for some people were almost deal-breakers after bibs had gone on sale wasn’t a great experience. C- overall for pre-race organisation.
Bib Pick-up
Bib pick-up for the Chessington Valentine’s 10k is on the day inside Chessington School. A bit like the nearby Tadworth 10 race — where bib pick-up and Race HQ is inside the Duchess Stand at Epsom Racecourse — having the start area inside a cavernous school atrium with plenty of toilet facilities was fantastic. It meant you could get organised, pee, drop your bag, pee, go for a warm up and then pee before the race began.
Parking was also plentiful in an industrial estate over the road from Chessington School, making the pre-race experience very enjoyable.
Start Line
The Chessington Valentine’s 10k starts on Leatherhead Road just a short walk from Chessington School. Small finish time markers were set out so you could position yourself at an appropriate place, as the start of the race is a little tight along a footpath.
Leatherhead Road
The race starts running along Leatherhead Road for the first three-quarters of a mile, where there’s a slight incline of around 26ft (0.4% gradient). While not the greatest elevation on the course, it is noticeable after the initial adrenaline surge of the start gun wears off.
After a few hundred metres the pack begins to open up, and after half a mile there’s a decent amount of space between runners.
Rushett to Christ Church Road
The course then takes a left and you head out onto country roads, where the Chessington Valentine’s 10k really starts to ‘undulate’. This segment of around 1.2 miles has an elevation gain of 98ft (1.4% gradient), but as you’re running downs as well as ups, the ups can be tiring.
The last quarter-mile segment along Christ Church Road is fairly brutal, with an elevation gain of 31ft and gradient of 2.5%.
The Roundabouts
Back on to pavements as you turn left onto Horton Lane, you pass five roundabouts on a long downhill section of the course. Each roundabout is heavily marshalled so there are no issues with vehicles, which is one of the good reasons why the earlier 08:00 start made sense.
After running the ups and downs of Rushett to Christ Church Road, this 1.75 mile stretch is where you really make up time as it is net downhill with a gradient of -1.4%.
Chessington Road
After another left turn, you hit Chessington Road. This 1.6 mile section is predominantly flat, although there is a fairly nasty climb towards the end of the segment as you pass the William Bourne pub. It may only have a gradient of 2.5% but by this point in the race your legs are burning and any sort of uphill really hurts.
Final Stretch and Finish Line
The final stretch is back on Leatherhead Road, around half a mile and a slight incline to get you back to Chessington School.
You take a left on Garrison Lane then left again, and it’s a downhill sprint to the finish line inside the school grounds.
Race Strategy
Despite the ups and downs, running the Chessington Valentine’s 10k is an excellent opportunity to clock an early season PB. The earlier start in 2023 also meant there was less traffic on the roads, which was particularly useful through the Roundabouts and Final Stretch when you do need to cross roads.
My running club the Sutton Striders had given us race strategy tips beforehand, so we knew what to expect when running the Chessington Valentine’s 10k. Besides going out a smidgen too fast, I pretty much stuck to that strategy and it worked like a charm, where I bagged myself a new 10k PB of 37:32–12 seconds faster than my previous PB set at the London Summer run (which had two-third of the elevation gain of the Chessington Valentine’s 10k).
I decided to go with a strong start and for the first mile clocked a pace of 5:51 mins/ mile, which was about 10 seconds/ mile faster than my target race pace. I pulled back a bit for the second mile as the country roads around Rushett were fairly bumpy, running at 6:20 mins/ mile.
About halfway is where the course heads into net downhill territory and is an excellent opportunity to put the hammer down. Through the Roundabouts I clocked 5:54 mins/ mile then 5:51 mins/ mile, with a net elevation loss through those two miles of 133ft. This is definitely the part of the course that will make or break your PB attempt, as you’ll need a bit of slack for the last two predominantly uphill miles through Chessington Road the the final stretch along Leatherhead Road. I was giving it all I had towards the end of the race but still slowed to 6:10 mins/ mile in Mile 5 then 6:12 mins/ mile in Mile 6.
So for a race strategy, a decent start is highly recommended (just not too fast!), then take the ups and downs on Rushett the best you can. Once you turn the corner to the Roundabouts, put your foot down and take advantage of almost two miles of downhill running. The last two miles will be tough going uphill but give it whatever you have left in the tank, then it’s a short downhill sprint to the finish line.
Reflections
Without the change to the start time and timing chip shenanigans, this would’ve been an almost perfect event. The Race HQ is fantastic, parking is plentiful, there are plenty of toilets and the bag drop was incredibly efficient. The race itself is also brilliant, introducing a range of different challenges but nothing that makes you want to curse the organisers!
Hopefully for the next running decisions about start times and timing chips will be agreed before bibs go on sale, and I look forward to running the Chessington Valentine’s 10k again and giving it another go at a 10k PB.
If you’ve liked this race report, you can check out my other reports on other local races in Surrey, London and the Southeast of England, such as Running the Tadworth 10, as well as some of the world’s biggest marathons like Running the New York Marathon, Running the Berlin Marathon and Running the Athens Authentic Marathon.
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