Reading Half Marathon

Listed by Go-KL
  • Rated 76%
  • 13.1mi
  • Road
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Entrants (4) Club PB SB Pred Time WAVA
BrianK Hungerford Hares 1:21:31 1:54:12 1:54:12 50.91
Go-KL Outside of school, my first ever running race and my first ever half marathon. In my second year at university, I'd done little in my first year having been signed off by the doctor for a whole 12 months with a knee injury (In hindsight it was probably growing pains). By my second year and having lost an awful lot of weight on a diet of beans, crackers and very badly cooked meals (I was very poor student in every sense of the word). I was itching to get fit again and to start running. The training was a sporadic affair - a cheap pair of trainers meant my feet were in agony most of the time, most of my runs were no more than half an hour as I didn't have the energy (See lack of food) and the absolute longest run I did was an hour. Looking back now ten years on I wonder what on earth I was doing, but I had little clue of how to train - the internet was in its infancy and I certainly couldn't afford magazines like Runner's World. I also had no idea of how fast I was going to run - the only incentive I had was that a tutor was going to double his sponsorship if I broke 1 and a half hours. This literally meant nothing to me in terms of whether it was a good time or not. The run up to the race was not ideal - indeed I had a heavy cold, and if it wasn't for the fact that my Dad was coming to watch me race for the first and only time and my brother was running too I would have pulled out. Of the race itself, well I have little recollection other than it was exhilarating running with so many other people, that I was running much faster than I had done in practice and that from the looks of people around me I was doing quite well. I died a thousand deaths in the last three miles but I saw I had a chance of breaking 1:30, so the last mile was an all out effort and to my delight I broke it with seconds to spare. I couldn't walk for a week after, but I finished 252nd in a field of thousands, and my race finish photograph summed it all up - me in a torn baggy green long-sleeved top that I wore clubbing two years earlier and baggy long thick cotton shorts and asthma inhaler in one hand - out-kicking a runner in fall athletic kit and Oakley sunglasses. It was then I realized that with some proper training and decent diet I could make something of this running lark. Grantham Running club 1:14:46 1:29:13 1:29:59 1:29:13 64.98
KKKKKarl Unaffiliated 1:42:50 1:42:50 1:42:50 56.38
Nic.1 50 Marathon Club, Reading Joggers, Wargrave Runners 1:33:43 1:47:35 1:47:35 66.28

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