This is going to be a tricky one to review.  For reasons I won't go into here neither my head nor my body were in the right place for positivity or energy today, so my gut instinct is to say that I didn't enjoy this particularly although I feel much better about it now I'm home!  However, I suspect any run that I did today wasn't going to be the best.  Because of this, I'll try to stick to facts rather than feelings.

Pros

-The biggest pro is at the end.  You finish the run in the Olympic Stadium on the track.  It's amazing, it really is.  Saying that, it's short, only 100m (a previous review from 2016 said they did 300m so it looks like they've shortened the track part). The roar of the crowd is pretty good too. 

-Two water stations. Always a positive on a 10k (I never think one is enough, especially on a hot day, which today was). There were probably a good number of people behind me but not hundreds and hundreds and they still had good supplies of water left.

-Names printed on race numbers.  I like this because seasoned supporters then do shout your name. I shed a few tears at one point when it was hard going and someone shouted my name.  Totes emoshe.

-Great medal! #lovebling

-Fabulous goodie bag - excellent tech tshirt, bottle of water (500ml, none of your poncy little bottles), and Up&Go Brekkie drink (sounds weird but who knows - also a 50p off voucher), some GlucoTabs, a Kind bar and a Bounce protein ball, plus some other bits that I've binned. Also a leaflet outlining offers for runners at the shopping centre.  My only comment on this is that both the bar and the ball contain nuts (and I don't just mean trace - one is maple glazed pecan and one is Almond). It would be nice for non nut eaters/allergy sufferers to have one of the two that they could eat!

-Lots of St Johns Ambulance folk about, always a bonus. Hopefully not needed but good that they're there.

-Plenty of loos at the start and no queues! But not signed very well (inside the stadium).

-Similarly, although the shops weren't open yet, the shopping centre was and so were the loos!  Hurray!  An extra opportunity.

(I know, I'm toilet obsessed, but who isn't when you're about to run a race?!)

Cons

-It's very much not flat.  OK, so I wouldn't go so far as to say it's hilly but there are lots of manmade flyovers/bridges that you go up.  I know, what goes up must go down, which is lovely but then a lot of the time your'e almost immediately going up again.

-It's not the prettiest/nicest course. It's not ugly but it's not great either. although if you've never been round all of the Olympic Park venues (Aquatics Centre, Copperbox) you do get to run past those.

-More toilets on the course would have been good, especially when, at the start, they're announcing to make sure you take on water.  I spotted one small group of loos (phew!) but they were a bit tucked away.

-It would have been good to have marshalls at the shopping centre directing people on arrival. It's not an easy place to find if you've not been before.

Would I recommend it?  Yes, I think I would for the stadium finish which is really amazing.  But I'd warn people that it's very "undulating" which makes it hard if it's warm, which as it's June, chances are it will be.  Would I do it again?  Hmmm, not sure.....