The Reading Half Marathon

13.2 miles around the town of Reading.

This was the second time I had run this. In 2005 I ran it with very little training and brand new trainers. This is a novice mistake, do not make it! Anyway, my mum bet me I couldn't do it in under 2hrs - my time of 1hr 59 was very satisfying.

This year I ran it with Rosemary. We had been training two or three times a week for 3 months getting ready of this day with a target of running it in 1hr 40. However it was no smooth ride. January brought freezing conditions and very little light (as we were running at 5 or 6 in the morning). Then shortly before the race Rose developed shin splints. These happen at some point to every runner, and it was unlucky it had to happen now. But she never saw not running as an option, so whether it was wise or not she decided to run.

13,500 people were running the half so it was packed, took ages to get away from the crowds at the start, making the first mile really slow. After about half a mile Rose and I split up, I had decided to push for 1hr 30. At half way I was just behind schedule, but then I started to hit problems. My body was not happy that I had been working at a pub till 1am the previous night, so before the race I had about 4 or 5hrs sleep. My heart started to skip beats as it used to, and my stomach started playing up (I was at the peak of food poisoning). So what do you do when this happens? Well, I just hit my ipod onto a good tune and after shouting at my body to sort itself out I pushed on.

As I came on the last mile I put my favorite burn out tune on “Bon Jovi – Livin’ On A Pray”.Getting high on my adrenaline I finished with a sprint in the respectable time of 1hr 36. After trying to stop myself passing out on the finish line I crawled back up to the stands to look out for Rose – but she had hit far bigger problems than I had.

Shin splints are extremely painful and they were giving Rose absolute hell, although capable of sub 1hrs 40 she came home in 2hrs 34 still running. Lesser people would have given up, but her exceptional mental strength and will had got her through. It goes to show that you can achieve anything if you focus on your goal, even running a half marathon with an effectively broken leg. It was pretty amazing.

But looking forward now, we’ve got a 10k road race coming up on July 1^st, so look out for the next installment then. I may post some other things such as good advice between now and then so keep checking!

For Rose and I this is hopefully just the beginning, we want to build up to do ultra long distance marathons amongst other insane projects.

J.

Results of the Reading Half Marathon : Sub Two Hours, Over Two Hours