Fairly local, flat and not too badly priced, Maidenhead drew 8 26.2 runners in to a field of over 1500. If they can sort out a congested start and perhaps drop the jump down steps halfway through, this could be a great addition to the local half marathons.
The organisers had organised many road closures, but the start was in a fairly tight town centre street and, worse, the race began with a loop back to the start line for maximum congestion. Our own fault for standing around chatting rather than getting positioned for best effect, perhaps, but not ideal.
That aside, this race is about as flat as it gets, with just two short not-at-all sharp hills that I noticed, though I struggled a bit from miles 9-12 so maintain they were slightly uphill. Perhaps so very slightly as to be barely noticeable by mere mortals.
Despite being a close-knit gabbing group beforehand, when it came to it we all ran our own races. Even on the longer straights I couldn’t see Jason disappearing ahead of me. Just one pb that I know of to report, with Kevin Stone taking a whopping 8 minutes off his time from Richmond last year – that’s over 30 seconds a mile, which is some speed boost. Robb Reeves might have settled for 1:59 but in the event nearly got under 1:50. Sue Garnish was without Andrea to chase and this time outside 2 hours though not by much. The rain at about the 1hr 15mark got heavier, which wasn’t entirely pleasant to run in, with several runners settling for survival at that point, and it made the last few turns a little slippery but this is a race with potential.
Posn | Name | Chip | Gun |
49 | Jason Blair | 01:25:44 | 01:26:05 |
97 | John Matthews | 01:28:26 | 01:29:23 |
261 | Mark La Frenais | 01:37:26 | 01:38:24 |
313 | Mark Osikoya | 01:39:28 | 01:40:49 |
333 | Richard Goulder | 01:41:42 | 01:42:02 |
668 | Robb Reeves | 01:50:49 | 01:52:23 |
906 | Kevin Stone | 01:56:48 | 01:58:18 |
1077 | Sue Garnish | 02:01:27 | 02:02:58 |