The Maidstone Half Marathon starts at 9.30am on Sunday 18 October in Mote Park. Entry is £32, and the host club's own page still prints last year's £31.

The Maidstone Half Marathon is on Sunday 18 October 2026, starting at 9.30am from Mote Park. Entries are open, the race counts towards the Kent Grand Prix this year, and the cut-off is three and a half hours, which puts the last finisher over the line at about 1pm.

There is one thing to get right before you enter, and it is the price. The two official pages disagree with each other, and the cheaper one is the wrong one.

Entry fees, and why the two official pages disagree

Sporting Events UK, which runs the entry system, lists the fees as:

Entry Fee
Advance, affiliated club member £30
Advance, unaffiliated £32
On the day, subject to space £40

Maidstone Harriers, the host club, publishes £29 affiliated, £31 unaffiliated and £35 on the day on its own page for the same race. The same page also carries the line “This event is now closed. The 2026 event details will be available as soon as the date has been confirmed”, directly underneath a heading that gives the date as 18 October 2026 and the start as 9.30am. That block has not been refreshed for this year.

The live figure is the one in the entry system. Its own structured event data prices a standard entry at £32.00, matching the unaffiliated advance rate. The on-the-day gap is the one that stings: £40 against the £35 the club’s page still shows.

Advance entries close at 1pm on the Wednesday before the race, which is Wednesday 14 October. After that it is on-the-day entry only, open until 9am on race morning and subject to space.

The basics

  • Date and start: Sunday 18 October 2026, 9.30am
  • HQ: Mote Park, Mote Avenue, Maidstone
  • Distance: 13.1 miles, road
  • Minimum age: 17 on the day, under UK Athletics rules
  • Cut-off: 3.5 hours, so 1pm
  • Buggies and dogs: not allowed
  • Charity partner: Mid Kent Mind, with a donation option built into entry

A small point of confusion in the paperwork: the club gives the Mote Park postcode as ME15 7SU and the entry system gives ME15 7SX. Both drop you in the same park off Mote Avenue, but if you are setting a satnav, expect the two official sources to send you to slightly different gates.

The course

The route has been the same since 2022 and the club describes it as “a steady opening through Mote Park, gentle climbs to Pilgrims Way and quiet lanes, concluding with a confident descent and big cheers to the finish line back in the park”. It starts and finishes inside Mote Park and reaches the countryside through a few town roads.

The club’s own FAQ answers the two questions people ask most: the course is measured and licensed, and the elevation is undulating. A GPX file and a course video filmed by a club member in 2023 are both on the club’s page.

Marshalling is by Maidstone Harriers volunteers. Neither organiser has published a road closure list, and Maidstone Borough Council’s Mote Park events page records the race as one of ten large events in the park this year with the event day contact still marked TBC. If a closure order appears we will add it to our roadworks and travel page.

What a good time looks like here

This is not a flat course and the times reflect it. The current record was set in 2024 at 1:16:15, taking more than a minute and a half off the previous mark of 1:17:49. The club’s own page names the record holder as Carl Halsey in its text and Craig Halsey in the table immediately below it, so one of those is a typo.

The 2025 race was won in 1:17:29 by Sam Flood, aged 20, with Lee Rogers second in 1:17:55. The women’s race was won by Beth Rose in 1:31:23, 25th overall, ahead of Trang Nguyen in 1:34:24. The women’s course record is Amelia Porter’s 1:27:01 from 2024.

The medal changes design every year and the club says it is designed locally, which is a big part of why people come back.

Spectators, parking and getting there

Mote Park is the reason this race works as a family morning. The start, the finish and the event village are all in the same place, so you can watch the runners leave and be in position for the finish an hour and a quarter later without moving.

Parking is the thing nobody publishes. There is no dedicated race parking listed by either organiser, so the park’s own car parks and the town centre are the realistic options. Our Maidstone parking page has the current tariffs and the free periods, and on a Sunday the on-street rules are more forgiving than on a weekday.

Also in the park this autumn

The half marathon is the last large event booked into Mote Park this year. The Kent Downs 50 Challenge is the weekend before, on Saturday 10 October, and after that the council’s 2026 list is empty, which is also why there is no fireworks display in Mote Park this November.

Sources

Checked on 5 September 2026. Fees and deadlines can change, so confirm on the entry system before paying.