Thank you for your patience with us whilst we have been looking into every possible opportunity to allow this race go ahead as planned.
We have spent every day this week at the venue trying to make sure we make the right call. We are fully aware the weather situation may change to improve over the next day or two, or it may get significantly worse. At the time of leaving the venue the forecast is currently predicting over 50mph winds in Stratford at some points and heavy rain and the Met Office have issued weather warnings so in the interest of safety, we are in the unfortunate position where we have been forced to postpone the ON London Half Marathon until November 1st 2020*.
We are very grateful to everyone involved with the venue for allowing us to give you a postponement date so quickly. We know it’s quite far away so we are also offering you all a free entry to one of almost 100 RunThrough events this year (see below for details) in addition to rolling your entry over to the new date.
We understand that braving the elements would have been appealing to many, and those that know us well, we are always more than determined to put events on whatever the weather. We put on 150+ events per year and we even had two races in Storm Ciara last weekend, so as you can imagine, this is not something we take lightly.
We had already found an alternative for the event village, it would be inside the stadiums concourse, a decision which was made since the forecast became more of a reality earlier this week. However due to the cumulative effect of the storm last week and this weekend we are unable to use the Wetlands area of the route due to the potential of rising water from the River Lea. Also some areas on course (which we wouldn’t use normally for our regular 5k/10k events) have building works taking place nearby and it cannot guaranteed that the building materials will be secured based on the adverse weather conditions.
Furthermore there are also significant disruptions to pubic transport making travelling to and from the park much more difficult.
This is an extremely sad day for RunThrough as it is only the third time (out of 500+) we have ever had to postpone an event in London due to weather conditions in over 7 years. We have left this decision as late as we can as we have to keep in mind you will all need to make travels plans but we needed to be sure about the weather.
However, looking to the future. We have sent all entries an email with details of some options for you with regards to your entry – please be sure to check your emails, and spam for further details.
We really hope you understand our decision and apologies for any disappointment that we truly share. If you are unhappy with any of this then please email us on [email protected]!
Thanks,
The On London Half Marathon Team