40th 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, we celebrate our 40th anniversary race in 2024. Our race 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!

Race HQ and start is at the fantastic Helsby Community Sports Club, Callender Way, Helsby, WA6 0FX. Due to limited car parking at our start location, we are limiting entries to 1500 runners. 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 RC and local community groups. To ensure we can still support our local community groups and charities we are not providing a goody bag this year and there is a new Eco finishers medal.

All finishers will also be able to download a virtual Finisher's Certificate and you can still pre-order a race T-shirt when you enter, available for collection at race HQ on the day of the race. We are also giving all entrants FREE access to all the official race photos.

Please read the race web page for all race details.

We understand sometimes you enter a race and something crops up. As soon as you enter we incur costs, so have the following fair and simple refund policy:

• Cancellation up to and including 3 Dec 2023: refund minus £2 admin
• Cancellation up to and including 12 Jan 2024: refund minus £5 admin
• After 12 Jan 2024 we are unable to offer a refund.

You can transfer your entry using the on-line entry system up to 9am Friday 19 Jan 2024. Transfer is simple and are done by you through this website. If you have already received your number, you are responsible for getting it to the new runner.

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.

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