Grand Prix Race 2 – Haweswater Half Marathon (10M+ Category)
The Haweswater Half Marathon was selected as the second race of the 2025 Grand Prix. This took place on Sunday 02nd March from the village of Bampton on edge of the Lake District National Park, not far past Penrith. The race began at 11:30 so there wasn’t a need to rise at dawn to make the 2 hour journey. Numbers were collected from the Village Hall and following the race briefing there was a 400m walk to the starting point.
The route takes you back through Bampton, and after a couple of miles, onto a quiet country road which runs the entire length of Haweswater Reservoir. The views on the RHS provided some welcome distraction from the undulating and at times, hilly route. One criticism might be that the route is fairly ‘samey’ with the only noticeable features along the way being the Haweswater Hotel and the turning point at the far end of the Reservoir.
On reaching the water station and turning point, it was a case of re-tracing your steps back along the out-and-back route before finishing at Bampton Village Hall.
* In Div 2, Will Brindley and Stuart Smith had a great race, finishing well in the overall field, both bagging sub-90 mins.
* Div 3 had the best attendance and all had good runs, but it was Simon Clough who led from Steve Dobby. Heather Christopher used her previous race knowledge to run a strong second-half to bag 3rd place ahead of Steven French.
* In Div 4, Katie Donaldson followed on from her great run at the Brass Monkey HM to come home in 1st place ahead of Nikki Courtney in 2nd.
* Steve Leggett had a good run at Druridge and followed this up with another good run at Haweswater to consolidate his lead in Div 5. Alison French picked up 2nd place and put in a great performance as she returns from injury.
Kandis Watson and Ruth French (non Grand Prix) we also in attendance and ran well. Kudos also to Simon and Nikki who also ran the Alnwick XC the day before.
There were no runners from Divisions 1, 6 or 7 so a missed opportunity for some perhaps. On the whole a good traditional Lakeland race, hosted well by Eden Runners.
The full results can be found HERE