A bittersweet sort of a day.
I drove into Reading, and parked on a Caversham sidestreet, 12 minutes and 33 seconds walk from the start line. This is the sort of statistic that comes easily to the chap who wears a stopwatch.
Unlike last year, there was not a massive, stressed-out crowd of people trying to deposit their bags simultaneously. They got it right this year. I sailed through, leaving enough time for a 10 minute massage from Monique, a student at Reading College. After parting with a bargain £4, I trotted off to take my place in the starting line-up.
Unlike last year, there was not a half hour delay for the race to start. No. This year, the delay was nearly an hour. Yes, I crossed the start line at 10:25, 55 minutes after the scheduled start. I would love to pass on the excuse/reason for the delay, but Sweatshop’s attention to detail meant that the PA system didn’t work at our end of the field. The elite runners and the sub-1:20 people were apparently kept informed, but not us. At 9:40, some red-faced croaky-voiced bloke ran down the line shouting into a megaphone that we would be off in 10 minutes. Twenty minutes later, an even more panic-stricken looking bloke ran down the other side, with no megaphone, shouting that we would be away in five minutes. Fifteen minutes later, amid much cursing and ironic cheering, we began shuffling forward.
By this point, I really didn’t give a shit about the Reading Half Marathon. And I really didn’t give a shit about Sweatshop.
What was the next problem? Ah yes. The first water station was earlier than expected – about 1.5 miles. But sadly, there was no water available there.
After such a demotivating start, I finally got into my stride. The first mile was crowded, but after a while I was able to tune into my own goal, and get on with it.
My goal was to beat last week’s time of 2:20, even though Reading was a much harder course.
My splits in the first half were: 10:25, 10:14, 10:58, 09:57, 10:48, 09:45, 10:10.
Then I slowed down with 11:05, 11:01, 11:46 and 12:15.
After this eleven mile point, I realised I was running just behind last week’s time, and upped the ante with 10:54, and a final (by my standards), aching 10:02 and 00:55 for the final tenth of a mile.
I finished 8 seconds behind last week. It just added to my misery.
At the moment, I don’t want to say any more about this event. I’ve never felt less like writing about a race.
