Compiled and fact-checked by Tommo, Verus founder · Last verified August 2026 · Spot an error?
Running · Ultra Marathons
Wendover Woods 50 2026
- Race day
- Saturday, 14 November 2026
- Location
- Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
- Distance
- 50 mi / 80.5 km
Wendover Woods 50: 14 November 2026. Centurion's brutal 50-mile, 10,000ft five-lap ultra in the Chilterns — date, entry, aid stations, the 15-hour cut-off.
Wendover Woods 50 Race Timeline
65 days to go
This is where the real training happens — building your long run and getting comfortable with ultra race-pace.
Wendover Woods 50 2026: quick answers
When is Wendover Woods 50 2026?
Wendover Woods 50 2026 takes place on Saturday, 14 November 2026, starting at 09:30.
What time does Wendover Woods 50 start?
Wendover Woods 50 starts at 09:30 from Trig Point Field, Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury HP22 5NQ (opposite Aston Hill Bike Park).
Where does Wendover Woods 50 start and finish?
Wendover Woods 50 starts at Trig Point Field, Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury HP22 5NQ (opposite Aston Hill Bike Park) and finishes at Trig Point Field, Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury HP22 5NQ.
How many miles is Wendover Woods 50?
Wendover Woods 50 is 50 miles (80.5km).
How much elevation gain does Wendover Woods 50 have?
Wendover Woods 50 has approximately 10000ft of total elevation gain. Emphatically not. 10,000ft of climb across 50 miles is roughly double the South Downs Way 50 and comparable to genuine mountain races. It arrives as 2,000ft per lap, five times over, on short steep forest climbs with no long runnable sections to recover on. The 15-hour cut-off — two hours longer than Centurion's other 50-milers — is the clearest statement of how much harder this is than the distance suggests.
How much does Wendover Woods 50 cost to enter?
Entry is £115. Entries opened at 10:00 on 6 December 2025, first come first served. Qualification is a marathon-distance race completed within its cut-off between 1 January 2021 and race day.
How can I track a runner at Wendover Woods 50?
Live tracking and published splits through Centurion's results platform. The lap format means supporters see runners every ten miles.
Key Race Metrics & Overview
- Date
- Saturday, 14 November 2026
- Distance
- 50 miles / 80.5km
- Location
- Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
- Start Point
- Trig Point Field, Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury HP22 5NQ (opposite Aston Hill Bike Park)
- Finish Point
- Trig Point Field, Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury HP22 5NQ
- Start time
- 09:30
- Elevation gain
- 10000 ft (3048m)
- Surface
- 99% trail — forest tracks and woodland paths inside Wendover Woods, which turn heavy and muddy in November.
- Cut-off time
- 15 hours overall — two hours more than Centurion's other 50s, which tells you what the course does to people. Intermediate cut-offs apply at each aid station.
- Age requirement
- No minimum age is stated on the official race page. The marathon qualification standard effectively rules out most under-18s.
- Tracking app
- Live tracking and published splits through Centurion's results platform. The lap format means supporters see runners every ten miles.
Direct Entry Summary
Entry is £115. Entries opened at 10:00 on 6 December 2025, first come first served. Qualification is a marathon-distance race completed within its cut-off between 1 January 2021 and race day.
Ballot Policy
No ballot — first come, first served when entries open.
Wendover Woods 50 Race Day Weather
A real forecast appears here once one exists for race day — usually about a week to ten days out. Nothing is shown until then, because a made-up forecast is worse than none.
Wendover Woods 50 Route Map & Elevation Profile
Starting at Trig Point Field, Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury HP22 5NQ (opposite Aston Hill Bike Park) and finishing at Trig Point Field, Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury HP22 5NQ. 10000 ft of total elevation gain across 50 miles.
Is Wendover Woods 50 flat?
Emphatically not. 10,000ft of climb across 50 miles is roughly double the South Downs Way 50 and comparable to genuine mountain races. It arrives as 2,000ft per lap, five times over, on short steep forest climbs with no long runnable sections to recover on. The 15-hour cut-off — two hours longer than Centurion's other 50-milers — is the clearest statement of how much harder this is than the distance suggests.
Wendover Woods 50 Course Profile
10000 ft total elevation gain.
Tap a point on the course for details.
Trig Point Field, Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury HP22 5NQ (opposite Aston Hill Bike Park)
Start line.
Where Wendover Woods 50 starts and finishes
Wendover Woods 50 starts at Trig Point Field, Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury HP22 5NQ (opposite Aston Hill Bike Park) and finishes at Trig Point Field, Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury HP22 5NQ. We haven't been able to place those on a map accurately enough to show one — a pin in the wrong place is worse than no pin.
These are the start and finish points, not the route. Verus doesn't hold course files for this race, and drawing a line between two pins would be a guess you might end up training on. The official course map is the one to use: view it on the organiser's site .
Full Wendover Woods 50 Route Breakdown
Five 10-mile laps on forest trails inside Wendover Woods. Each lap carries 2,000ft of climb, which is how a 50-mile race in the Chilterns ends up with 10,000ft of ascent — more than any other Centurion 50 and more than most British mountain ultras of the same distance. There is nothing technical about the ground and no navigation to do; the difficulty is entirely in repetition and relentless gradient, run in mid-November when the woods are wet and the light goes early.
Wendover Woods 50 Pace Calculator & Splits
Wendover Woods 50 Pace Calculator
Enter a target finish time to see your pace and projected splits.
Average pace / mile
4:48
Average pace / km
2:59
Wendover Woods 50 Pace Chart
Split markers calculated for standard checkpoints — no official pacers are confirmed for this event.
| Target | Pace /mi | Pace /km | 5K | 10K | Half Marathon | 30K | Finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3:00 | 3:36 | 2:14 | 11:11 | 22:22 | 47:12 | 1:07:06 | 3:00:00 |
| 3:15 | 3:54 | 2:25 | 12:07 | 24:14 | 51:08 | 1:12:42 | 3:15:00 |
| 3:30 | 4:12 | 2:37 | 13:03 | 26:06 | 55:04 | 1:18:18 | 3:30:00 |
| 3:45 | 4:30 | 2:48 | 13:59 | 27:58 | 59:00 | 1:23:53 | 3:45:00 |
| 4:00 | 4:48 | 2:59 | 14:55 | 29:50 | 1:02:56 | 1:29:29 | 4:00:00 |
| 4:15 | 5:06 | 3:10 | 15:51 | 31:41 | 1:06:51 | 1:35:04 | 4:15:00 |
| 4:30 | 5:24 | 3:21 | 16:47 | 33:33 | 1:10:47 | 1:40:40 | 4:30:00 |
| 4:45 | 5:42 | 3:33 | 17:43 | 35:25 | 1:14:43 | 1:46:15 | 4:45:00 |
| 5:00 | 6:00 | 3:44 | 18:38 | 37:17 | 1:18:39 | 1:51:51 | 5:00:00 |
| 5:30 | 6:36 | 4:06 | 20:30 | 41:01 | 1:26:31 | 2:03:02 | 5:30:00 |
| 6:00 | 7:12 | 4:28 | 22:22 | 44:44 | 1:34:23 | 2:14:13 | 6:00:00 |
| 6:30 | 7:48 | 4:51 | 24:14 | 48:28 | 1:42:15 | 2:25:24 | 6:30:00 |
| 7:00 | 8:24 | 5:13 | 26:06 | 52:12 | 1:50:07 | 2:36:35 | 7:00:00 |
Wendover Woods 50 Finish Time Estimator
Enter a recent 5K, 10K or Half Marathon time to estimate your Wendover Woods 50 finish time.
Your 5K time
Estimated Wendover Woods 50 finish
7:55:19
An estimate only, based on Pete Riegel's race-time prediction formula. Real marathon performance depends on endurance, training specificity, pacing and race-day conditions — not just your speed over a shorter distance.
Training for a different distance? Try the full pace calculator, race time predictor or pace chart.
Got your target time? Save it to your profile.
Tag Wendover Woods 50, set your goal pace, and let Verus track your countdown, training and fundraising in one place.
Start Your Verus JourneyWendover Woods 50 Race Day Checklist
Tap items to mark off your race-day readiness.
- The full Centurion mandatory kit list: mobile phone, survival blanket (1.4m x 2m), whistle, waterproof jacket rated 10,000mm+, warm hat, gloves, a long-sleeved base layer, and a personal cup
- A headtorch of 100+ lumens — mandatory if you start any lap after 13:00, which in November is nearly everyone
- Deep-lug trail shoes: November in Wendover Woods is mud, not hardpack
- A spare pair of shoes and socks in your drop bag for the start/finish field
- Warm layers to change into between laps — you pass your bag five times, and the temperature drops fast after dark
- A pacing plan built around 2,000ft per lap, not around 50-mile flat splits
- Proof of your qualifying marathon, if asked at registration
Training Strategy for Wendover Woods 50
20-24 weeks is the realistic window for a first 50-mile ultra, assuming you already have a marathon's worth of base behind you. The block that matters is back-to-back long weekends — a long run on Saturday followed by a second, slower one on Sunday — which builds time on feet and teaches you to run on tired legs without the recovery cost of one enormous day. Practise your race-day nutrition on every one of them; at this distance the stomach fails before the legs do.
This is a largely flat course, so most of your long runs can mirror that — flat and steady, building time on feet rather than hill strength.
Drop volume hard across the final three to four weeks — further out and steeper than a marathon taper, because a 30-mile training day costs weeks of recovery, not days. Keep some easy running and a little terrain-specific work in, but the goal is to reach Trig Point Field, Aston Hill, Halton, Aylesbury HP22 5NQ (opposite Aston Hill Bike Park) with fresh feet and a rested gut rather than one more long run in the bank.
Lock in your target pace using the interactive splits calculator below — no official pacers are confirmed for this event, so a pace band on your watch is the more reliable option.
Test your race-day fuel and hydration plan on your long training runs, not for the first time on race day — check the Race Day Checklist below for what's actually on this course.
50-Mile Ultra Nutrition & Fueling Plan
A modest carbohydrate increase over the last two or three days. Nothing new, and nothing heavy the night before.
A 09:30 start allows a proper breakfast two to three hours ahead — eat more than you would for a flat 50, because the climbing burns through it faster.
The lap format is a gift here: you pass a full aid station and your own drop bag every ten miles, so you can plan a genuine eating schedule rather than carrying a day's food. Hot drinks matter more than usual on a November afternoon that turns into a November night.
Get warm and eat quickly — 10,000ft of climbing in the cold empties people faster than the mileage alone suggests.
Wendover Woods 50 Charity Places 2026
No formal charity-place scheme is published. Runners are free to fundraise on their own entry.
Lead with your personal story — explain why the charity matters to you. Personal connection generates 3x more support than a generic link broadcast.
Share key training milestones on Instagram (first 10-miler, peak week, race week) with your fundraising link in bio. Publicly thanking donors prompts secondary gifts!
Running Wendover Woods 50 for charity?
Link your JustGiving page to Verus and show up right here alongside other Wendover Woods 50 fundraisers — goal, progress and story, all in one place.
Add Your Fundraiser to VerusWhere to Stay for Wendover Woods 50
Wendover
The closest village to Aston Hill, with a station on the Chiltern line and pubs for afterwards. The obvious base.
Small, so rooms are limited on race weekend.
Aylesbury
The nearest town of any size, with the widest choice of hotels and a short drive to the start.
Not walkable to the course, and less pleasant than staying in the hills.
Tring / Berkhamsted
On the West Coast line, a short drive from Aston Hill, and pleasant Chiltern towns in their own right.
Further from the venue than Wendover, and a dark drive back after a long day.
Travel & Logistics
Wendover station is the nearest, on the Chiltern line from London Marylebone, a couple of miles from Aston Hill. Tring and Aylesbury are the other options. A taxi covers the last stretch.
No Park & Ride. Parking is at the Trig Point Field venue — check the current race information for capacity.
None — the race is run entirely inside Wendover Woods on forest trails.
Spectator & Cheer Guide
The Trig Point Field start/finish is the best place to watch: every runner comes through it five times, and there is a real atmosphere as laps tick down. Supporters are welcome elsewhere on the course except at the Hale Lane aid station.
You do not need to move. The lap format is the most spectator-friendly of any 50-miler in the Centurion calendar — bring a chair, a flask, and warm clothes for a November day.
Live tracking and published splits through Centurion's results platform. The lap format means supporters see runners every ten miles.
Wendover Woods 50 Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know for race weekend.
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Race details independently compiled and fact-checked by Tommo against the official Wendover Woods 50 site , last verified August 2026. Always confirm official timings and policies directly prior to race day.