All races are events, but some are Events. The Reading Half belongs in the capitalised category, where accountants and marketing teams often seem to nudge out running people. And yet I manage to approve of Reading, partly because they seem to have the balance between sport and business just about right, but mainly because it’s my local big race, so a spot of greasy chauvinism is always going to blur the lens of objectivity.
Many halfs start and finish in a town centre, but vanish into the countryside for a 10 mile loop in between. There’s a lot to be said for that. Who would object to a Sunday morning spent winding through the lanes? Yet I like the urban backdrop to this race, which starts at the Madejski Stadium, home of the annoyingly goody-two-shoes Reading F.C.,then heads for the town centre via the university. We never stray outside the town. Instead we gradually spread across it, like red wine spilt on a napkin, or like some B movie-style pestilence. The Curse of the Runners. We take over, reaching into every fissure, grasping the very apparatus of local government. Indeed, I spent five minutes chasing a silver-haired, middle aged man with a teeshirt that stated in large letters: I AM THE MAYOR OF READING. Was this blatant populism from the big man? Or a once-aspirational admin assistant from the planning office, with a surely dwindling belief in the power of positive affirmation? I am unlikely ever to know.
Piercing the heart of the town, and remaining within the notional battlements, also guarantees the sort of hearty vocal support that you tend not to get in the villages of rural England before the pubs open. Add in the pony-tailed, middle-aged rockers pumping out an electric 12 bar blues in an otherwise tidy front garden; the Stomp-like percussion band clattering out their driving message from under the Oracle shopping centre flyover; the sports drink regularly on offer on the course; water in bottles rather than plastic cups; the stadium finish; chunky medal and well-stocked goody bag; and the silver foil blanket… and you end up with the closest thing I’ve experienced to a big city marathon. Apart from, well, apart from the several big city marathons I’ve done…
Some negative musings to report though. As much as I like this Event, it’s getting worryingly bloated. Not a reference to the pot bellies sported by me and ‘The Mayor of Reading’ (note inverted commas), but to the size of the field. I’ve done the race four times, though not since 2005. It’s grown since then, and it must now be at its limits, if it hasn’t already exceeded them.
One of the paltry benefits available to back-of-the-field athletes like me is that you have plenty of room. Agrophobiacs are fast runners, I’m sure. But today that convention was trampled on by the thousands of other slowbies who’d been let in. Seriously, I don’t recall ever doing a race that was so congested all the way round for the more… patient runners. Even coming down the A33, an arterial dual carriageway, it was hard to squeeze past the scarlet-faced, flagging masses. And as the stadium approached us, I wanted to put on a final spurt after the 400 metre sign, but again, there was no way through the wall of flailing lard. Quite a novel experience.
It won’t stop me doing it again, and I still think it’s a cracking race, but I hope the organisers take note of the interminable queue for the shuttle buses, and the overcrowding along the route. It’s an expensive day out. Including the elegant teeshirt, it costs more than the London Marathon. I worry that some thrusting young marketing accountant, not looking beyond the bottom line of his spreadsheet, is looking for ways to turn the race into the sort of human disaster that the Great North Run has become. Being stranded in South Shields for 4 hours has to be one of life’s low points.
No race is complete for me without some burst of panic on the way. I’m late, or can’t find a place to park, or need to pee, or regret having that extra slice of toast for breakfast. This time it was confronting a series of Road Closed signs as I threaded my way through Reading’s small intestines. Unlike the vehicles u-turning all around me, I pressed on, hoping that the signs were officious bluster. Thankfully, they were. The roads would be shut later, but at 8 in the morning, they were still open.
Once parked, I lingered in the car as Jensen Button won the Melbourne Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton, who’d started in last place, finishing a creditable third. With every mention of Lewis Hamilton came the memory of the Lewes Hamburger of course. Remember that? October 4th? I may not be the athletic miracle I briefly threatened to become at one pre-Christmas point, but the health nadir of Lewes sure seems a long way off now.
The new anxiety is my upper back. The big knobbly bit at the very top of my spine. (I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there’s a more formal name for it than that.) Ever since I started plodding, back in 2001, I’ve had this problem. It appears when the distances creep up past 10 or 12 miles. It doesn’t stop me running, but it’s a pretty severe discomfort. It vanishes shortly after I stop, but while I’m in full lissome flow, it’s almost impossible to move my head sideways, or bend it forwards, without a nasty, stabbing pain at the base of my neck. It brought back thoughts of the Zurich Marathon, and five hours of incessant rain, being chased by the growl of the sweeper bus, and this pain in… in the big knobbly bit at the top of my spine. Not my most comfortable afternoon, but still better than being run aground in South Shields.
I mention the back pain because on my way to the start of the Reading Half, I spied the massage tent, and took the £5-to-charity offer of a 10-minute massage. The girl was giggly, and polite enough to laugh at my jokes, but she lacked the sadistic, killer instinct of Phil, so I’m not sure that it did me any good. But I was able to feel holy about my charity donation, and had the unexpected opportunity to lie down for a few minutes before the start of the race.
It’s become a hillier course than it used to be. Like the label of Chateau Mouton Rothschild, it changes every year. Last time I did the race, it was flat. Now, there are three quite sharp inclines, two of them in the first mile or so. Like most tasks in life, if there are going to be bumps, it’s best to get them out of the way early on.
I started with the 2:10 pacer, and stuck with him up to about the 7 or 8 mile mark, when the 3rd hill loomed. By the time I reached the top, the pacer had scarpered. Run away. So I settled into a steady chug, wondering if and when the 2:15 man and his followers would overwhelm me.
The answer made me wait another 5 miles. I was nearly home when he suddenly appeared and nipped past me on the right, while I was painfully trying to look to my left. Crafty beggar. I stuck with him as we arrived at the stadium, assuming stupidly that this would give me a time of 2:15. I’d forgotten that I’d started with Mister 2:10, so instead I ended up with a 2:18, about 7 minutes outside a PB.
I didn’t mind. It was the getting round that mattered, and getting round without enraging any latent injury. On that front, mission accomplished.
As always, I was struck by the alarming amnesia that sets in shortly after the end of a race. The final few miles were a slog. I’ve experienced a lot worse than this in races, but I can’t say that I squeezed much joy from the latter part of the Reading Half. Dry mouth, head down, move one leg in front of the other, and count down the mile markers. Final mile blurry, breathless and unpleasant. Over the finish line, feeling salty-faced, giddy, empty inside, and with some remote high-pitched siren running around my brain. But within a minute or two, sports drink drunk and bemedalled, I’m grinning again, and urging on the birth of some strange truth: that everything was fine; I enjoyed it; looking forward to next time, when of course a PB will be collected. The elation of finishing is a wave that washes away all traces of the pain of the moment. I’m glad it happens, or most of us would never run more than a single race.
Instead, another cell turns red on my spreadsheet. Just three more blue ones in the current batch: the Worthing 20 miler this Sunday, Maidenhead 10 on Good Friday, and the bad boy itself: Boston. That’s all that’s left. Just 56.2 race miles between here and Boyleston Street. 56 miles and a couple of condensed lifetimes.
