I was going to be in London this weekend anyway, and as Carmen was planning on doing this race to get a rubber duck, I thought I might as well join in for an easy half marathon. With PHOENIX Running races, you don't all have to start at the same time, so as long as we were at the start in Walton-on-Thames, and going before 09:00, we were okay. We noticed another race, done by RunThrough was further down the river, so that explained why we were running in the direction of Hampton Court this time - the same direction I've done every time I've done this race. There was also some other event going on around the sports facilities there, so parking was busy, but we still found a space without issue.

Once we'd got out ankle bracelets on for tracking laps, looking like we were on release from Feltham, we were off on our first lap. Each lap is around five kilometres, so by doing four laps we'd be doing a half marathon, but it was actually up to us how many laps we wanted to do within the time limit. This would be kicking off our Berlin Marathon training, a race we're doing in support of Get Kids Going (please donate to them if you can: JustGiving), so would not be doing anything silly today.

We got the first lap done without walking, but needed to remove a layer before starting the next lap as it was getting warm and humid. The second lap was a little slower, with some walking breaks, but it was quite peaceful along the Thames compared to some of the previous races there. The third and fourth laps got progressively slower though, as yesterday's time on feet took its toll. We eventually finished together in 02:37:13 - easily my slowest half marathon to date.

At the finish, Carmen got a small Princess rubber duck, a duck pom-pom, and a medal. She was definitely getting good value for money! I'd opted for the cheaper race entry as I didn't really want the rubber duck or pom-pom, the medal would have been fine though if just that had been an option.