Reading Half Marathon

jfh

Hi, i would like to partake in a half marathon in the spring & i'm looking at the Reading half, i would like the opinon of any one who has taken part in this.
Presume it's easy enough to get to from london? would you recommend this as a good half?
thanks for any feedback given.

wizwill

jfh, i have never done the reading half its a big one in the uk, i think 12k+ entrants, i think a lot of london marathon runners use it as a warm up. Finish is in the majeksi stadium, it looks really well organised, i looked at it last year and thought it was a bit difficult to get to so i went with the liverpool half which was very good. Seems to be a fair few new halfs popping up around the country now so you may not have to head to the uk.

jfh

thanks wizwill for reply, i was hoping to get a half in as training for Conn, and Reading looked alright, did see on another thread that it wasn't very scenic. ya i do see that there's a few halfs herer next year, but part of me wanted to do a run overseas & make a bit of a holiday out of it as well. something to keep the motivation for running over the winter

Peckham

Reading half marathon in 2005 was my ever race, and I've fond memories of it. Used to live over there and did it as a challenge with a few people from work.

It's a pretty big race, but I don't remember crowds being a problem. We arrived at the start reasonably late, but still got a good starting position - guess this must be due to its good organisation. Think it's scheduled as the ideal tune-up race for London marathon, hence why it's so popular.

The route itself is as dull as it gets (at least back when I did it). Reading isn't the most exciting of towns, and the final few miles were through a pretty empty industrial estate, which was a bit of a slog. That said, the novelty of finishing in a stadium makes up for it all.

Just thinking now, that given that the start and finish are a few miles apart, it's pretty impressive that they get your bags to the finish in time given the high numbers in the race. Have no recollection of collecting my bag, so guess that must mean it was efficient.

Reading is handy enough from Heathrow, although you'd probably need to stay in Reading overnight the night before (although you could get first flight out of Dublin that morning and do the race, flying back again that evening!). Getting out from Central London by public transport that morning is also probably doable, but would imagine there's a bit of a distance between train station and start line (although they probably lay on buses for this).