My first half marathon of 2018 that I originally chose to run as prep for the London marathon and I’m glad I did as it gave me a good indication of what to expect albeit on a smaller scale.
My experience of the day is a good one. Well marshalled and lots of helpful smiling volunteers.
The course is reasonably flat although a bit boring but ideal for a PB really and up until 11 miles I thought I was on for it but a foot issue almost ground to a halt just after the 12 mile mark. Have been suffering for a while but the cobbled streets we had to run on at points set it off again. I really was struggling. One lad saw it, gave me a pat on the back and some encouragement which gave me a lift and got me over the finish line in 1:38:31.
My only gripe for the day was it wasn’t really clear afterwards how to get to the DLR. We were advice to go to the entrance as cutty Sark but once there we couldn’t get across because of the remaining runners. Having walked 10 mins to get there we then had to walk to Greenwich to get the DLR from there. Not really ideal when you’ve just ran 13 miles.
still, all in all a satisfying day. The only thing i’d Change from a personal perspective is that I would choose to stay in London the night before. I left Reading very early to get there for a 9am start. Then took me almost 3 hours to get home via walking DLR, 2 underground trains and the national rail from Paddington back to Reading. That was nothing to do with the well run event. That’s just a personal learning experience for me.