The Big Half: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

You start on The Highway, right at the northern end of Tower Bridge. The first half runs east through Limehouse and the long Limehouse Link tunnel – with a short climb at its exit around kilometre 3 – into the skyscraper canyons of Canary Wharf. The route then doubles back through narrowing streets in Limehouse and Wapping, where a short stretch of cobblestones demands your attention.

At kilometre 12 comes the moment many enter this race for: after a small ramp you cross Tower Bridge, before the course turns along Jamaica Road through Bermondsey into the quiet loop through Rotherhithe and Surrey Quays. Between kilometres 13 and 18 the race turns unglamorous – former dockland, thinner crowds, long straights.

Through Deptford the spectators build again, and live bands and DJ stages line the whole route through the four boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Lewisham and Greenwich. Five hundred metres from the line, the small bridge over Deptford Creek serves up the final rise, then the road drops into Greenwich town centre and the last turn opens the view of the Cutty Sark clipper – the finish sits just beyond her, with the celebration in Greenwich Park.

Pacing Strategy

The course sits between 2 and 12 metres above sea level – this is a race about even splits, not about managing climbs. Start waves are big and the opening kilometres crowded, but the roads are wide: skip the weaving and settle into goal pace over the first three kilometres. In the Limehouse Link tunnel GPS drops out and the road dips then rises again – run strictly by feel there and resist pushing on at the exit.

Canary Wharf is the trickiest section: among the towers your GPS pace jumps around, and reacting to the watch means running surges you will pay for from kilometre 15. Work off the mile markers or lap manually. The race itself is decided on the quiet kilometres 13 to 18 through Rotherhithe – with no crowd noise the pace drifts unnoticed, and this is exactly where you need to hold your rhythm deliberately.

The classic trap comes earlier: a too-fast opening five kilometres plus the adrenaline of Tower Bridge. Control both and you will still have legs for the Deptford Creek bridge 500 metres from the line – ease over the top, then drive down the falling finishing straight to the Cutty Sark.

Training plan for The Big Half: 12-week build

As an age-group runner, expect a race of 85 minutes to around two and a half hours; the four-hour cut-off leaves room for relaxed race plans too. The effort is purely aerobic and remarkably uniform: with no climbs to speak of, there is no change of terrain to bring other muscle groups into play – only you hold your pace.

Preparation should therefore centre on sustained speed on the flat: weekly threshold sessions and goal-pace blocks of three to eight kilometres inside your long runs. Because the race is decided on the quiet second-half kilometres through Rotherhithe, progressive long runs that finish at goal pace are particularly valuable.

An early-September date means your key training weeks fall in high summer. Put long runs in the morning and deliberately keep a few sessions in the heat – a late-summer city race between asphalt and building fronts can run warm even in London. Practise drinking on the move as well; aid stations come roughly every five kilometres.

Two quirks deserve targeted work. Run part of your tempo sessions by feel rather than by watch, because GPS is useless in the tunnel and in Canary Wharf. And sprinkle in strides or short hill pickups – not for real climbs, but for the small ramps at the tunnel exit, up to Tower Bridge and at Deptford Creek, which cost more out of full race pace than their profile suggests.