So I'd built this up into a beast as it was my first half and I'd heard positive reviews of how scenic it was but it wasn't quite was "amazing" as I was expecting. Don't get me wrong, it is a pretty route but there were a few things that I thought let it down. Maybe it was just me, maybe it was the rain. Let's start with the positives. The festival village is pretty huge, lots to see and there seemed to be a large number of food vans. The route was quite nice, would have preferred a trip along Embankment rather than The Strand but that's just picky. Marshals around the route were always enthusiastic, and that really helped, as did the 'Charity Tunnel' shortly after entering the park. The medal is super cool, being made of wood, it is different to every other medal I've received. The sustainable tote bag was a nice touch, that'll come in handy! Seemed to be plenty of bananas and post race water. Which brings me onto the negatives, I did notice that although I didn't pick up water, some of the latter water stations seemed to be low of resources. I think it was mainly the cup stations, and it could possibly have been because a large group had just been through. The support wavered from time to time but again, could be because of the rain and who could blame them?! The baggage queue takes forever to drop your bag off if you arrive there after around 8:20am. It took me until pretty much 9:00am to get to the front of the queue. There was nowhere to change which, even though this had been mentioned by the organisers, with the rain that was forecasted is a little disappointing. Even the London 10,000 has a tent to get changed in! Lastly, even though it's an event organised by a charity, I do think it's overpriced but I am glad I can say I've done it. All in all, it was okay. I didn't come away as enthralled as I thought I was going to - maybe it was the rain or maybe I'd hyped it up too much.