Reading Half Marathon

Well, we were lucky with the weather even if it did get a little warmer than we were used to for the second half of the race. But I'm glad I didn't realise there would be so many hilly bits. On each uphill stretch I lost time and couldn't recover my pace on the downhills. It was all going so well until after a couple of miles we have to climb nearly 50 metres. The overall elevation gained is apparently 156 metres if you count all the uphill sections together. So in the end I was pleased with my 2 hour eleven minutes even if it was four minutes slower than Oxford. My final position was 6,955 out of 10,980 finishers, 63% down the field which was exactly the same as Oxford. Also 94th out of 189 runners over 60 (just better than Oxford's 57th out of 96). Just a shame there wasn't a 70 plus category.

The day went very well. However we did arrive too early. Having left home just after 6.30am, we were at the park and ride before 7.45am! We had a rest in the car before catching the bus and arriving at the Madejski Stadium after 8am. We found some seats and watched the children come in from their Green Park Challenge race. By 9.15 we were in the race village and I was leaving Alison to walk to the start. There were so many runners, the walk down kept on stopping so I did not arrive at the Orange pen until 9.45 for the 10am start.

I then discovered that my Orange coded number was for runners expecting between 2 hours 15 and 2 hours 30. I ended up here because of my deferral from last year. I entered in 2014 long before I had attempted a half marathon so erred on the slow side. I took the decision to duck under the tape and enter the Green pen and found the 2 hour ten minute pacer. We finally got under way at 10.35 am so I had been waiting at the start for 50 minutes. And most runners around me had waited longer. That has put me off such a big event.

But what was great was the journey back to the car. A walk from the stadium to bus stop, and we managed to be one of the last on bus. The bus lane to the park and ride was excellent and we were in the car and on our way home in no time. A great end to a memorable day.