Reading Half Marathon

Reading Half Marathon

I'd no major compulsion to do the Reading Half.  I knew it was one of the bigger half marathons in the UK at around 18000 but its not one of those bucket list events that everyone aims to do like the Great North Run.  When I do a Half in England these days its usually because people I know who are less serious at running want to take a step up to a bigger event and suggest doing it to me.  For a marathon I wouldn't need any persuasion and I wouldn't be bothered if others aren't signing up. Unfortunately, sometimes the other people drop out and I end up doing the event anyway on my tod. That's what happened in this case.

The timing for this worked out ok as I would consider April as a period of tapering after the last tough few months.  I'd done an Ultra and a marathon already along with some other marathon distance training runs for the Fling. I had Manchester the following week, so if I wanted to do well there I shouldn't do longer than Half distance in training.

On heading over I definitely felt some fatigue. I'd been running some fast 10k's with the Craic and Carn 10k in March and was still feeling the North Coast Marathon and the training runs  That didn't stop me from signing up for some parkrun tourism at the Reading Parkrun. The Reading Parkrun was pretty big at a few hundred and was mostly on soft ground with a little bit of trail later on. It had recently been flooded with a temporary relocation to somewhere miles away.  On this occasion it was a nice jog through Thames Valley Park next to Avon canals. The whole area seemed like a nature reserve. I ran 23.58 and still felt pretty good.  It had a really long dramatic finish on the soft ground which I liked.

To compliment the run I felt compelled to go for a cycle. I was hoping for something as majestic as the Bristol to Bath cycle route which goes along a converted railway to Bath. Emerging into Bath you feel as if you're in a different world. Newbury seemed like the closest equivalent. There was a big catch though. For Bristol - Bath I had a nice hybrid to cycle on. For Reading the only hire service I had was their council hire scheme with crappy bikes. Doing 18 miles to Newbury would be a struggle. In the end I cycled to Theale along a pleasant route and managed to get a pint in at the Cunning Man pub. The hire bike fared well, but after the pedals came off when I cycled to Comber last year on the Belfast bike I was pretty worried about a repeat. I didn't think a 18 mile walk carrying a heavy broken bike would help me for the next day.

Reading Hire Bike

On race day itself I headed to the organised buses at the station. All well done without too much waiting around. Race village was well laid out. Bag drops were laid out like at the Berlin Marathon with number separation. They didn't complain about me bringing a rucksack as well.  As seems to be a trend with bigger English events there were lots of toilets at the start. The start was some way from the the race village and it took some time to reach the red zoning. Upon getting there I bumped into Paul, a former member of OAC who was running for Burnham Joggers now.  We had a chat and he soon went to position himself in the pen. We were both the same colour start, I wasn't going to be watching him, but I knew that despite my improvements he's still in a different league as a runner. After the start he'd be gone. I didn't know at the time that he was using it as part of a 21 mile training run for London. If I'd known that at the time I might have tried to keep him in sight thinking he wouldn't be 100% or not taking it that seriously. However at the finish he was still a good 5 minutes ahead of me.

Entrance to race village

The race started at 10.15, a delay of 15 minutes, and even after that they were starting each wave every couple of minutes. I had my doubt about this, but overall on reflection there wasn't that much congestion. Why Belfast doesn't do this at the crush at the start I don't know. They don't care I guess.

At the starting I saw that there was a 1h35m pacer. In my recollection this was a first in a race and it was sort of where I was at. I wasn't really feeling 1h33m like in Carlingford. Besides it was quite warm, it was busy and there would be distractions. I set off with the pacers, though as usual plenty of others had the same idea and it was a bit of a crush. I moved on ahead a bit of them but not by much.  Running next to pacers is usually a crowded place.

There was a lot of crowd support near the start along the first roundabout.  The first water stop was about 2 miles in. This would be a welcome trend as often its about every 5k. On this occasion they had these odd plastic wrappers instead of bottles that worked really well. You could still hold them and drink while running but weren't awkward like full bottles would be. The miniature Buxton bottles they use in London are still the best though. 

Before long it became clear that despite the billing as the fastest half marathon it was by no means flat. there was a really horrible hill at mile 3 and after that my morale was shaken up a bit. Thankfully there were some downhill stretches so I was able to pick up speed a bit again.

There was a turn into the pretty big Reading University campus.  The support was pretty good there. There were bands, drums and cheering crowds. They started dishing out the Lucozade. I stepped on one of the bottles and nearly sprayed someone with sticky goo.  Thankfully it was a near miss unlike in London where I sprayed someone's legs and there was a bit of awkwardness as I ran next to the sprayed person for a bit after that.

From there it was a short journey into the centre which looked amazing.  There were more drums which they positioned underneath a big overpass for extra echo. The entire centre appeared to be shut to traffic with plenty of crowd support. Around the centre there were a couple of steep inclines as we went past the massive Oracle shopping mall. My time was still working out ok.  50 minutes for 8 miles.

Upon leaving the centre at the bottom of the hill there was a nice looking pub playing music and a table full of light ale.  At that point I decided to take a quick breather and sip ale. How often can you do that in a race?  I think I was the only one doing that at that point in the race. I was running mostly with serious faced club runners.

It was a bit of a slog getting up that hill and people started to pass me. First was someone in a full body lobster suit. I ran at the same pace as him and bathed in all the cheery banter. When approaching the 10 mile mark it was clear that I wasn't going to get a PB.  My time was 1.13 for 10 miles.

I took a brief comfort break and then worked out the remaining splits. Excluding Carlingford my PB was Belfast last year at 1.37.49 and I worked out I could beat that without wrecking myself.

The last few miles were pretty straight dual carriageway, so I just kept it steady. About mile 11 I saw the Race Angels which seems to be a trend in English events for enthusiastic ladies to cheer on struggling runners just before the end.  A great morale boost, but the Run Dem Crew who I saw at London and Berlin do this more bombastically with deafening cheers and loud banging tunes at mile 22 of marathons.

 I could see the 1.35 pacer getting gradually closer to me in front and nearly caught it by the time I reached the stadium. He actually was close to a minute slower than his required pace which must have been disappointing. I finished in 1.36.53. 3 minutes slower than Carlingford, but still a minute quicker than anything I did previous to the many Halfs I've done before that in the last 6 years since I started.

The stadium finish was pretty great. Cheering crowds in most of the seating, With all the Mizuno sponsorship everywhere it reminded me a lot of the finish of the Amsterdam marathon. There was only medical support at the finish. The organisers clearly wanted us to keep moving outside.

Once outside we got the medal, then goodie bag and tshirt. The shirt was only cotton. You had to pay for the good tech Mizuno ones.  At Halfs in NI you pretty much always get a tech shirt included though the design quality does vary. A guy from the Republic patted me on the back and of course I probed him for info about good races in the South, but he was an ex-pat who was an occasional runner.  I was slightly disappointed that I hadn't seen other local runners during the race. I'd become accustomed to unexpectedly seeing familiar faces no matter where I went, even in Berlin and Chicago. I did notice that Gary Murray who appears in NI running reports was 5th overall in the race though.

The post race support available at the race village was decent.  There was a beer stall serving nice pints of Amstel and Guinness which is always welcome. I made sure to go back into the spectator section in the stadium and enjoy my pints while watching the remaining runners come in. There were stormtroopers and a camel mixed in with the sea of charity runners arriving around the 2 hour mark. The sun was still out and it was a pretty good atmosphere.

I think that's probably my new favourite English Half Marathon. Another favourite is the Grand Union Canal Half because I really enjoy running along canal paths with nice scenery. It doesn't have the organisation of this event though. The event felt almost as polished as the London Marathon which I'd regard as the gold standard.  I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure how I feel about travelling for Halfs these days when there's a world of exciting events out there and I can now handle doing longer distances and still doing a bit of tourism after.