Reading Half Marathon

Ah Reading. The one that was, but wasn't quite but still very much was.

In a bid to prevent blokey experiencing as little stress ahead of his first ever race as possible I booked us into the Reading Ibis Hotel. This meant not having to get up at a particularly ungodly hour and being able to get ourselves together at a leisurely pace. The pick up point to get us to the Madjeski Stadium was also only a few metres away so... happy days.

I love a list, me.

Having spent the day in Oxford (buying Primark hoodies to discard at the start line) we arrived in Reading fairly late. We were a bit worried when we arrived as the hotel was on the high street and Saturday night was in full swing in all it's youthful WKD-soaked glory. Thankfully, Ibis seems to take its double glazing duties very seriously and we had no noise from the street at all. We popped down to Jamie's Italian to load up on carbs and then headed back to our room, both very concerned that his insomnia would choose today to go utterly insane (my other half's insomnia that is, not Jamie Oliver's. I'm sure he sleeps very well). Alarm set. Lights out.

I won't say we leaped out of bed full of energy at 7am but get up we did, both having had some rest. It was mildly fitful, kind of Christmas eve style nervous rest, but it did the trick. I didn't quite plan how we were going to toast our tried and tested peanut butter bagel race breakfast so instead we scoffed a bag of pain aux chocolat - no complaints here, I tell ya!

Kit donned, pins attached, shoes on and we're out the door only to come face to face with the most gigantic queue for the race shuttle bus I have ever seen. It snaked around three entire streets and was growing rapidly. Oh dear.

Jumping forward in time slightly, I've read that lots of people had issues with the bag drop at the race. I wonder if we'd left our bags there and had to wait for ages my opinion of the race would've been lower. As it goes, from that giant snake of a bus queue I was bowled over by how well organised everything was. It only took us about 10 minutes to get on a bus (which might sound like a long time but you really had to see the queue) which left as soon as it was full and dropped us off at the stadium with loads of time to have a mooch. There were plenty of clean and well stocked portaloos and our only real worry at that point was that it was going to rain.

Oh yeah, and the 13.1 miles waiting for us.

We went to our start pen (also resplendent with loos!) and listened to the lady giving the announcements, chuckling when she pronounced Mizuno 'Mizunu' and when she announced elite athlete Paul Martelletti as Paul Marlinelli (we were nervous so most things at this point were very funny). The pen got more and more full. The sky got pretty dark. We eventually took off the Primark hoodies we'd become strangely attached to and shuffled along to the warm up. The gun went off a little bit late and I hear the fateful words:

"I need a wee."

So off to the side we go as hundreds of people pour past. There goes the 1:50 pacer. Then the 1:55 pace flag goes by and we're still not running. He finally emerges from the portaloo and we jog to the gantry, fiddling with our Garmins and smirking at each other like idiots. The smirking does not last long for me. Within the first mile my leg starts to throb again. Following my trip to the physio the pain I've been having has been manageable but today my leg decides to be difficult. For the first thee miles I can feel myself limping and it's hard to get my pace where I need it. I finally find my stride and the mile markers seem to be flying by. Blokey is tearing it up and I am hanging on to his not-at-all-literal coat-tails.

Coming back into town centre was mental - people were actually in the road on the course cheering their nuts off, which was both exhilarating and nerve wracking. We pass our hotel and there's a brief moment off wanting to plough through the crowds and head back to bed. We run past the Nags Head Beer Station (right past it - drat!) and there really aren't that many miles to go. I knew it'd be a close call but I'd been monitoring mile splits pretty closely and knew that if I could push a bit harder there was every chance we could make the sub 1.50 time we'd set as the ultimate goal for the day. This seemed even more achievable when we caught up with and took over the 1.55 pacer.

Between mile 11 and 12 is a stretch of very bleak main road. Very bleak indeed. There is no protection from the wind, which by then had really picked up, and I started to flag. The difficulty of this seemingly endless stretch was made even harder by the lady supporting a runner in close proximity to me. She ran alongside me for about 1/2 mile literally screaming GO KATY at the top of her lungs, right into my ear. I started losing it in my head and I wanted to cry. I really hope it spurred Katy on, though. We made the out and back stretch that brings you to the home straight to the stadium, now passing the 1.50 pacer. Signs started to appear: 1800 metres to go, 1200, meters to go, 800... things started to get a bit crowded and I struggled to find that extra bit of zing that I normally feel towards the end of a race and then BANG - blokey dropped me and made for the sprint finish! This lit a rocket up my butt and my legs came back to life and I don't know if I've ever run so flat out. I would like to say how amazing it was to finish in the stadium but I have no real memory of that part...

He was waiting for me just over the line and we just burst out laughing! My watch said 1:51:22 and although I was kicking myself that we were so close to our target it was still a PB for me by almost 5 minutes and no lame effort for his first ever race. My leg exploded and I hobbled along to the goody bags / medals area. I asked him how he felt after his first race. "Well," he says "I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I felt pretty comfortable and I think I could have gone faster."

Medal and goody bag in hand we made our way back to the bus where my official finish time came through to my phone: 1:50:21. Blokey's was 1:50:14.

I won't lie, I was pretty proud of us both.

Now, I'm not sure I'd do Reading again. Not because there's anything wrong with the race, it was fantastic and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone, but there are so many races out there that I want to try. The medal was brilliant, very weighty, and the goody bag was bountiful with treats and a tiny pack of Worcestershire Sauce that I appreciated for its sheer randomness (and for it's use a few days later during what could have been a gravy-tastrophe).

All in all, not a bad day at the office.