Deal Half Marathon 2025

February 16, 2025

Deal Half Marathon – Very Hilly but strangely enjoyable!

This weekend’s challenge took the form of Deal Half Marathon: a road race widely described simply as “hilly”. Part of the Kent Grand Prix and Thanet Club Championships, lots of points were up for grabs by today’s runners.

Bitterly cold but dry conditions presented themselves, with the route avoiding most of the offshore wind. With Race HQ at Betteshanger Park, runners had a good half mile warm up to the start line. Beginning with a very slight uphill, the course is positively undulating throughout. Taking the shape of a lollipop, the route stretches inland before looping round and returning the same way. It’s useful for runners to keep this mind, remembering that they’ll traverse the same road on their way back; any uphills on the way out will be downhills on the way back and vice versa.

Canterbury 10 Mile was fresh in many runners’ minds and served as a good comparison for today’s race. Whilst there are more hills in Deal Half, they didn’t seem to stretch on for as long as in Canterbury. Though it’s difficult to keep a steady pace, the downhills allowed runners to gather some speed and make up for the inevitably slower uphills. The route is scenic, skirting fields and giving views of rolling hills, with very welcome bursts of sunshine. This is certainly not a boring race – whether your focus is on pushing up the hill, fearing the next one, or taking in the scenery!

TRAC brought an impressive number of men today who all performed incredibly well, earning them first place team prize! Numbers for the lady’s team were lower than usual, but TRAC still had great representation.

Results

Pos	Gen Pos	Chip Time	Name	Category
2	2	01:18:06	Alex Dugard	Open
3	3	01:18:53	Lee Hardie	Open
5	5	01:22:23	Matthew Collyer	Senior Men
9	9	01:23:10	Matt McCarthy	Men 40-49
17	17	01:25:09	William Coles	Men 40-49
20	20	01:26:04	Jay Bailey	Senior Men
25	25	01:26:56	Christopher Brenchley	Men 50-59
26	26	01:27:06	Mark Croucher	Senior Men
32	31	01:28:44	Simon Arter	Men 40-49
53	6	01:37:22	Brittany Crombie	Senior Women
59	52	01:39:05	Stephen Suttle	Men 60-69
85	73	01:45:47	Mark Skelton	Men 40-49
101	17	01:48:20	Joanne Kemp	Women 40-49
122	98	01:50:36	Peter Johnson	Men 70+
132	105	01:52:31	Jason Barnes	Men 50-59
145	116	01:54:53	Peter Heath	Men 60-69
157	32	01:56:36	Tamasin Drumm	Senior Women
158	33	01:56:37	Julie Williams	Women 50-59
198	153	02:02:21	Spencer Hoult	Men 50-59
228	169	02:08:42	Mark Hadden	Men 60-69
254	73	02:13:22	Lainey Carter	Women 40-49
302	200	02:41:01	Tim Kerr	Men 60-69

For many, this was a well-timed opportunity to test the legs during marathon training. Well done to everybody who turned up today to take on the notoriously hilly course. Next Sunday we’ll head to Blean Woods for the final instalment of this year’s Cross Country season. We hope to see as many of you there as possible for one last chance to get suitably muddy!

Thank you to Brittany Crombie for the race report.

To watch the start of this race on our YouTube channel. Click the below link: