Wizz Air Ealing Half Marathon: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The start is at 09:00 at the race village in Walpole Park, right next to Lammas Park where the course's start and finish sit. The lap first runs along Churchfield Road and Broomfield Road out towards Uxbridge Road and Ealing Broadway, then north up Longfield Avenue into the Montpelier residential streets.

That is where the day's two climbs are. The first begins after a little over three kilometres, up Mount Park Road and Montpelier Road, 430 metres at a bit over three per cent; the second follows at about kilometre six on the way through Castlebar Road and Woodfield Road towards Pitshanger, another 500 metres or so at a similar gradient. Together they are a good 30 metres - little on paper, but they sit close together on a course that is otherwise 48 per cent flat and has no steep section anywhere.

After that the course opens out: Pitshanger Lane, Scotch Common and Cleveland Road west, over Argyle Road and Drayton Bridge Road into Hanwell with its churches and the Brent Valley, then back east on Greenford Avenue and Cuckoo Lane through West Ealing and finally along Uxbridge Road and Churchfield Road to the finish in Walpole Park. The course is UKA registered, fully closed to traffic, and delivered by RaceNation Events for the not-for-profit We Run Ealing; more than 3.5 million pounds has been raised for charity since the first race in 2012. Water stations sit at miles 4, 5.5 and 9 and at the finish, and the cut-off is three hours.

Pacing Strategy

On a course that is 48 per cent flat with no steep section anywhere, pace is fundamentally a matter of discipline - with one exception: the stretch between kilometres 3 and 7. The two climbs there come early enough to still feel easy and close enough together that the recovery between them barely counts. Take them at race pace rather than race effort and by halfway you have a heart rate that will not come down again.

The second factor is the crowd. More than 30,000 spectators on a single lap means noise and encouragement almost the whole way, and that is exactly what drags the pace up in the opening kilometres. The narrow exit from the race village and the packed Uxbridge Road are where it bites hardest.

The race is decided in the last third, when the route comes back east out of Hanwell. From there it is almost entirely flat, there is no terrain left to give the effort structure, and the roads are long and straight. Run the two climbs under control and you can lift steadily here; take them with the crowd and this is exactly where you lose minute after minute. The final kilometre through Walpole Park to the line is loud again - usually enough for a finish, not enough for a time.

Training plan for Wizz Air Ealing Half Marathon: 12-week build

For most age-group runners the Ealing Half Marathon is a 1:25 to 2:30 effort; the cut-off is three hours. The demand is a sustained near-threshold one with two moderate interruptions in the first third and a very even remainder - physiologically a classic half marathon with no special technical or surface requirement.

The training emphasis is therefore threshold work: longer intervals of six to twelve minutes just inside race effort, and tempo runs of 25 to 45 minutes. On a single-lap course with no repetition and no terrain, the ability to hold a pace for an hour and more without drifting is the direct performance factor.

To that add one specific session for kilometres 3 to 7: two moderate climbs of four to five minutes each with only a short recovery between them, both at race pace, followed immediately by twenty more minutes at race pace. That sequence is exactly what the course asks for, and it can be reproduced on any gently rising residential street, in London or anywhere else.

Conditions are those of a London September Sunday: mild to warm, often damp, a 09:00 start on fully closed tarmac. What deserves attention is less the weather than the setting - the complete road closure and the dense crowd make the course fast and seductive, and this race's most common mistakes are not training mistakes but pacing mistakes in the first five kilometres.