Some would say that it's mean to give a poor review to a race that's for charity, but I feel that, to be fair to races that get a good review for organisation, I can't be dishonest.  This race was for World AIDS day.  I'm afraid this is going to be my first review with more Cons than Pros.  

Pros

• Free Starbucks (although no milk by the end)
• Flat course
• Reasonably good marshal support.

Cons

• Two portaloos.  I think some toilets indoors but no signposting.
• Bag drop was an absolute shambles, using raffle tickets on sellotape. The queue was enormous, and there clearly weren't enough people dealing with it. This presumably was the reason for the....
• Late start. We were standing in the freezing cold in running gear for way too long and there seemed to be no recognition of this because they....
• Did a "warm up" routine, with a guy on a microphone, and we were all crammed in a tiny space, not able to move, making the warm up impossible.  And then.....
• Made ridiculously long announcements of why we were there, and what charities were involved, and who the sponsors were, all the while we were standing shivering.  We eventually started 25 minutes late.
• Problem with the chip timing system - it has only registered me as having done 5k when I did the 10k run.
• Generic medal.

I'm really sorry if this seems like I'm having a pop at a charity race. It's such a shame, but I've been to other charity races which have managed to not have many of these problems, which proves that it is do-able.