38th Essar Four Villages Half Marathon

The Essar Four Villages Half Marathon is a popular road race on rural roads around Helsby in Cheshire. Organised by Helsby Running Club, the race is in its 38th year and was voted Best Half Marathon in the North in the 2019 Challenge Awards. It is a great race to keep you training over the festive period and as preparation for the spring marathon season!

This year the race HQ and start will be at the fantastic new Helsby Community Sports Club, Callender Way, Helsby, WA6 0FX. Due to more limited car parking, our new start location and continued COVID uncertainty, we are limiting entries to 1000 runners for 2022. So sign up early to avoid disappointment!

The Essar Four Villages Half Marathon is very much a community event, organised by a team of volunteers from Helsby Running club and local community groups.  To ensure we can still support our local community groups and charities we won't be providing a goody bag this year and there will be a new finishers medal. 

All finishers will also be able to download a virtual Finishers Certificate and you can still pre-order a race T-shirt when you enter which will be available for collecton at race HQ on the day of the race. We are also giving all entrants FREE access to all the offical race photos.

Refund Policy

We understand that sometimes you enter a race then something crops up.  As soon as you enter we incur costs so we have come up with the following refund policy that we hope is simple and fair:

• If you cancel up to and including 27th November 2021: Refunded entry fee minus £2 admin charge
• If you cancel up to and including 3rd Jan 2022: Refunded entry fee minus £5 admin charge
• After the 3rd Jan 2022 we are unable to offer a refund

You can transfer your entry using the on-line entry system up to 9 am on Friday 14th January 2022.  All transfers must be done by you through this on-line registration site.

This is a winter race and we will be operating full road closures on the route to reduce the possibility of the race being cancelled on the day due to bad weather. Please take note of weather conditions on the day and wear appropriate footwear and clothing for your own safety.  In the unlikely event we do have to cancel the race on the day we are unable to offer a refund. All proceeds from the event go to support local charities and community groups and the continued running of the 4 Villages Half Marathon.

COVID Refund Policy

Please note for the safety of runners and marshals we expect entrants to be able to complete the race within 3 hours.