Running the Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon
A start and finish at a Royal Palace, flat towpath route and an impromptu visit from a 16th century monarch. It must be the Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon!
By the time the race notification came out in early-September 2021, I’d completely forgotten I’d signed up for the Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon!
It was during that lockdown haze of having races postponed, cancelled and re-booked that I’d missed popping this one into my calendar. Fortunately I’d been training for Brighton Marathon, which took place the week beforehand, so I had the fitness to take this one on.
When RunThrough organises a Hampton Court Palace race there’re usually several distances racing on the same day, from 5k to half marathon. But this time it was just the half. And even still, there were a good 3000+ competitors there for an overcast day by the Thames.
So if you’re thinking about taking part in the next Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon — which take place several times per year — read on to find out about what you can expect.
Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon Pre-race Organisation
The race organisers, RunThrough, do a pretty good job of pre-race organisation but the chaos the pandemic caused to races could’ve prompted more proactive communication.
You get your race confirmation email after booking, then nothing until a few weeks before the race, confirming the address to post your bib number to.
Ordinarily this wouldn’t have been an issue — and now we’re back to racing normally, touch wood, it shouldn’t be a problem in the future — but just coming out of lockdown (again!) it would’ve been useful to have had more frequent communication.
Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon Course Map
The race starts and finishes at Hampton Court Palace, a spectacular 16th century palace originally built for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chief minister of King Henry VIII, which has been inhabited and used by royals from Tudor times right through to the present day. It’s not often you get to start a race at such a historic site!
The start line is at the front entrance to the palace, and when the gun goes off you head down the drive towards the front gate, turn left and left again and you’re outside the palace grounds running along the Thames towpath.
The race ends back inside the palace grounds in the Royal Gardens to the rear of the palace.
The course is incredibly flat — I clocked an elevation gain of just 121ft (c. 37m) for the half marathon distance — and there are no discernible hills, just a few small inclines/ declines as you run over bridges.
Most of the route is rather scenic, running along the River Thames towpath, although there is a section of a few miles where you’re running along a busy road with narrow footpath, which isn’t the best part of the race.
Getting to the Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon
The race organisers strongly recommended travelling by public transport, as the on-site parking was reserved for race volunteers and there’s limited off-site parking. I took a train from Kingston Station to Hampton Court Station and walked a few hundred metres to the start area at the rear of Hampton Court Palace.
There were frequent trains from this direction — even at 07:30 on a Sunday morning — so it was no hassle getting there.
A friend decided to drive and ended up finding a parking spot along Hampton Court Road, although there were a lot of people who decided to do the same. If I were to do this again, I’d still choose to take public transport to avoid the hassle of not being able to find anywhere to park.
Start Area
The start area was located round the back of Hampton Court Palace where the race actually ends, meaning you had about a 10-minute walk to get there from the front gate, where the race starts.
There was a bag drop, information tent and some entertainment to keep you occupied while waiting, and when it was nearly race time you were called to go back to the front of Hampton Court Palace to line up (socially distanced) for the start.
Thames Towpath
You’re out of Hampton Court Palace within the first minute of the race, turning left out of the front gates and left again on to the Thames towpath. This first section is about 2.8 miles and is nice and flat, as well as being wide enough to comfortably overtake others.
Support along this section was great, with frequent cheers from dog walkers and ramblers using the towpath and race supporters hanging over the walls from inside Hampton Court Palace to cheer you on.
When you reach Kingston Bridge, it’s up a small incline, over the bridge, and then back along the towpath on the other side of the river.
This second towpath section only lasts about 1.5 miles before you peel away from the river and hit the mean streets of Surbiton.
Surbiton Streets
The least exciting part of the Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon is the 5 miles or so running along the streets through Surbiton and back towards Hampton Court Palace. The first few miles are along fairly narrow pavements, which makes overtaking difficult. That said, the race marshals did an excellent job of controlling the (very well behaved!) traffic to ensure the runners could cross roads safely.
As you take a right on to Hampton Court Way, the pavement opens up significantly and you follow the dual-carriageway back towards Hampton Court Palace. This is an excellent opportunity to push on, as by now you’re more than halfway and there’s enough space to safely pass other runners.
Thames Towpath — Part Deux
At Hampton Court Bridge you turn right and hit the Thames towpath — again. Running the same route to Kingston Bridge as previously, the experience is pretty much identical, save for your legs feeling a little heavier.
As you approach Kingston Bridge, instead of heading up the incline and turning right as you did on the first lap, you turn left and into Hampton Wick.
Hampton Wick
Hampton Wick is a large grassy/ moorland area out the back of Hampton Court Palace, backing on to a golf course and Bushy Park. It’s a bit of a curveball in terms of terrain, as until this point it’s all been smooth, flat towpaths and pavements.
The uneven surface plays havoc with tired legs as your body isn’t used to having to dodge round grassy mounds and navigate through dry mud beds. In all honesty, it’s not a great final two miles or so but when you see Hampton Court Palace come back into view the mood changes dramatically.
Finish Line
You re-enter the ground of Hampton Court Palace from the rear, following the path that leads to the Royal Gardens. The support at this point is electric, with people lining the course on both sides, urging you on.
After meandering around a couple of sweeping bends, you’re on to the home straight and a 100m dash to the finish line.
After picking up my goodie bag and the stonking great medal, I took the opportunity to grab a selfie with King Henry VIII himself, which isn’t something you can do after every race!
If you wanted, you could also take the time to wander around Hampton Court Palace and the gardens, which if it hadn’t started to rain by this point, would’ve been an excellent end to the day.
Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon Race Strategy
This race was a strange one for me.
For a start, I’d forgotten about signing up and didn’t realise I had a place until about two weeks beforehand.
My September was also a crazy mess of races that had been postponed and re-scheduled, with the London Summer 10K, Brighton Marathon, Berlin Marathon, Surrey Half and this race all supposed to be taking place for me over the course of four weekends.
In the end, after crushing the London Summer 10K, I bonked severely at the Brighton Marathon and ended up with injured hamstrings. I probably shouldn’t have ran the Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon in that state, but I wanted to convince myself that I had to defer my Berlin Marathon place as that race was taking place the following weekend.
So my race strategy for the Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon ended up being very simple — run as many 8:00 minute miles as I could and hope my hamstrings held up.
Luckily, they did, and I came in bang on 1:45.
If I were to run this race again my strategy would probably be very similar, aiming for even splits throughout. So same again, just a little faster!
Reflections
My aim for running Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon this time around was really to convince myself I had to defer my Berlin Marathon entry. Plus, I’d wanted to run this race since 2020, when I reluctantly pulled out of the event in the March of that year just a week before the UK went into lockdown. So it was a case of ‘unfinished business’ for me.
My slower pace felt weird to begin with, but after making a couple of buddies along the route and chatting for several miles, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
The only time my hamstrings gave me any pain was coming down the decline from Hampton Court Bridge to re-join the Thames towpath for the second lap. But other than that, the flat course meant there wasn’t much pressure on my body and due to my marathon training over the summer, I easily had the lungs to get round at a 8:00 mins/ mile pace.
So maybe one day I’ll sign up to run this again and see how I do when I can let rip. It’s certainly a course with excellent potential for a PB, particularly if you can nudge your way towards the front of the start grid.
If you’ve liked this race report, you can check out my other reports on Running the New York Marathon, Running the Athens Authentic Marathon and Running the Great North Run.
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