This year’s spring half-marathon will be…

WARSAW HALF MARATHON
Warsaw, Poland
Sunday 26 March 2016

We are thrilled to announce that the 2017 half marathon will be in Warsaw, Poland.  This is considered one of the top half marathons in Europe with over 12,000 people completing the 2016 race including a group of elite runners from all over the world.  The race gets excellent reviews for its top-notch organisation (race is sponsored by Adidas) and festive atmosphere including music throughout the course.  The race winds through the centre of Warsaw so runners can experience the history of this incredible European city and see both the old and the new neighbourhoods.

The race starts at 10 am and the course is primarily flat with the first half of the course flat or slightly downhill.  Unfortunately, there is a medium hill near the end of the course but we think it is very doable for all our runners including the beginners.  (We’ll give you more details soon about a comparable hill in London.)  The time limit for the race is 3.5 hours from the starting signal.  There are water stations every 4km throughout the course and toilets at each water station.  No medical form is required.

You never really know about the weather in Europe, but the expectation is that at the end of March the weather will be very good for a race.  Average high temperatures in Warsaw in March are 43F (6C) and in April are 54F (12C).

We are reserving a block of rooms at a big international-chain hotel in the centre of town very close to the race start/finish.  We’ll email in the next few weeks with details about how to book your room.

Monday – Return to London

Please remember that the half marathon trip is for runners only.  No husbands, no partners, no kids, no non-runners. This weekend is all about you and the women in the running group.  If you want to talk about this, just let me know.

We all owe a HUGE “Thank You” to Chris Roberts, our trip planner extraordinaire!  Chris has already travelled to Warsaw and met with the hotel director and race director.  She’s visited all the restaurants and even run part of the course. THANK YOU CHRIS!

At this point you can book your flights.  Please see the possible flight options below for Friday and Monday.  Saturday flights are also a possibility but we hope everyone will join us for the full weekend.  Please be aware that when people start booking flights the prices will go up so we want to give everyone an equal chance to book early.  Thinking about the budget for the weekend, we think flights will be relatively more expensive and other costs (hotel, food, transportation) will be relatively less expensive.  The registration for the race is not open yet and is expected to open in late October or early November.

I’m really looking forward to sharing this experience with you!

Jane

RACE

The race registration is very straightforward but we have put step-by-step instructions here just in case.

• Go to the race website here:  http://pzupolmaratonwarszawski.com/?lang=en
• Click Sign Up in the lower left corner
• Click Sign Up (green button) for the Warsaw Half Marathon
• Click Register (green button) to create an account
• Fill out the fields
  • Leave the subscriber number blank
  • Enter “Women Running the World” for the club
• Click Register
• Choose Regular Registration
• Click the box to accept the regulations
• The site will ask for an estimated run time.  If you want to start out with your pace group, use the list below as a guide.  You don’t have to run the actual time you put, we just want to make sure people can end up together if they wish so we have made some assumptions.  You are welcome to put a different time if you so choose.
  • 8s group – 1:40-1:49
  • 9s group – 1:50 – 1:59
  • 10s group – 2:10-2:19
  • 11s group – 2:20 – 2:29
  • 12s+ and all beginners – 2:30 – 2:39  (note – for anyone running at this time or above, we want to make sure you are not all the way at the back because the race cut-off is 3:30 by the gun time so we don’t want it to take 30+ minutes to cross the start as a precaution)
• Do not click the “I am a debutante” button even if this is your first race since you are entering an expected finish time above
• For the t-shirt, if you put in a size, you will be charged 5 euro for the Adidas tech shirt.  If you do not want a shirt, leave this blank.  We believe it is unisex sizing.
• Do not check “invoice”
• Leave the pasta party blank
• Click Register (green button)
• Click Payment (green button)
• Under the FEE 40 EURO statement is a green button in Polish (PLACE Z PAYU) – click this to go to the payment
• Enter your credit card details
• Do not check “invoice”
• Click the green button to pay – you will be taken to the Your Events page which may be in Polish but you can click the flag in the upper right corner to be the British flag to change it to English (the green buttons say “Paid” and “Details” in Polish).  The Details button will show all of your information.

You should receive 4 emails when you are done:  account registration, race registration, PayU receipt and your race number.

The website is very straight forward:

• Enter your check-in and check-out dates.
• Choose the number of adults in the room. If you are planning to share a room with a roommate, one person should book the room. You will be able to split the cost at the time of check out.
• Choose the type of room that you would like. The rate is the same for all single rooms and all double rooms. The distinction on the website among the types of rooms is how the hotel categorises rooms. It may look like the same room is listed twice, but this is just how the hotel computer system works.
• Enter your name, address and payment information to complete the reservation.
• If you try to book and there are no more rooms remaining, let us know.

Please follow the link to get our group booking rate:  http://starwoodmeeting.com/book/halfmarathon2017

The hotel has given us a very generous cancellation policy. You can cancel before 1 March 2017 with no charge. After that, there is a charge of one-night stay.

FLIGHTS