Reading Half Marathon

On 22nd March 2015 I raced Reading Half Marathon. A great day of racing and a new PB for the half marathon of 1:24:33. This is the third year I've run Reading and it remains my favourite race for speed of the course and quality of organisation.

Strategy

After my 1:26:09 at Bath three weeks previous, I was confident at being able to post an improved time. At Bath I had an average pace of 4:03/km and managed to hit sub-4:00/km pace for each of the last 5 kilometres. I therefore had a suspicion I might be able to sustain a 4:00/km pace for the whole 21km race. My goal was therefore to set off at 4:00/km pace and then to back off slightly if it got too tough. (Brighton Marathon is only three weeks after Reading this year and is my A-race, so I didn't want to put that in jeopardy by overdoing it at Reading).

The plan worked well and by just after half way I was on an average pace of 3:59/km. I was feeling good so continued to put my foot down and maintain this pace for the remainder of the race. Slightly tough for the last couple of kilometres, but I was catching other runners and that is always a great motivator to keep going. Finished the race with a 3:59/km average pace, so the plan worked out just about perfectly.

Organisation

Reading has always been an incredibly well organised event. In fact, my only gripe in previous years has been the queues at the baggage collection after the race and the bottleneck of runners at the first two roundabouts. Fortunately this year they solved both of these problems.

In previous years, they seemed to allocate numbers based on predicted finish times. Thus, all runners finishing around the same time were all queueing for the same baggage line while other lines were empty. This year the numbers seem to have been more randomly allocated, resulting in baggage collect being nicely spread out across all the lines. The addition of a one-way system as well, made bag drop-off and collect super smooth. In fact, they had my bag ready and waiting for me before I even made it to my collection point. Nicely done team!

Everything else about the organisation went perfectly for me. Car parking was good, the race village was well laid out, facilities excellent, course marking clear, medal and goody back collection smooth. A definite 10 out of 10. This year's medal is MASSIVE!

The New Course

For this year's race, they changed the course round slightly. In previous years the race would start coming straight out of Green Park onto roads and then round two roundabouts. This was always a massive bottleneck, with everyone jostling to get a good position and into their running flow. Then, at the end of the race you would run down towards the Madjeski Stadium then have to turn off and do a soul-destroying extra mile through Green Park before coming back to the stadium.

This year the course was changed to put the extra mile in Green Park at the start of the race. This worked incredibly well. Firstly, it meant that by the time you hit any road junctions the pack had already spread out a bit and there was less bottleneck at the roundabouts. Then at the finish you just reached Green Park again and ran straight into the stadium, which felt much more satisfying.

The other change to the course was to chop out a bit of Northumberland Avenue and Whitley Wood Road and replace it with some extra time in the Reading University grounds. This also had the advantage of chopping out an extra small hill, which was most welcome!

Overall, I'd have to say that the course change was very successfully and makes Reading an even better place to attempt a Personal Best.

Atmosphere

Reading always has a great atmosphere. There's great support right round the course and the various bands along the way provide a great boost. The finish in the Madjeski Stadium is always amazing and really motivates you for a sprint finish in a way that you just don't get elsewhere. A big shout out should also go to the various cheerleaders around the course. The group on the A33 in the last mile were a great morale booster.

Room For Improvement

The race was so well organised that it's almost impossible to find any faults. There are only two very minor things that I can find:

The first is that the route through Green Park at the start contained a number of speed bumps. Some of these were so well camouflaged with the road that it was almost impossible to spot them until you tripped over them. In fact, one poor runner next to me went over in the first couple of hundred meters on one of these - not how you want to start a race. Even after seeing this I still stumbled on another one, even though I was looking out for them! For next year I'd suggest the race organisers head out with some spray paint and make these much more visible.

The other is related to the staggered start. On my entry I specified a predicted finish time of 1:30:00, putting me in the red start zone. However, my training had gone very well and I was now looking for a 1:25:00 finish. I'd hoped to be able to tag on to the 1:25 pacemaker, but they were positioned in the yellow start zone which went off three minutes ahead of the red zone. There was thus no way of catching the 1:25 pace maker. As a suggestion, for future staggered starts, it might be worth including an additional pacemaker at the front of each zone who is set to go 5 minutes faster than the zone pace to support those runners who are faster now then when they entered (there were plenty of us).

Conclusion

Overall I'd have to say Reading this year was a better course and better organised than ever. This is definitely a race that should be on your race calendar for next year.