Reading Half

When I sat down at the beginning of the year to plan my training for London I earmarked some races that offered a fast course, good field and the chance of a good time.

As my training has evolved for the race this year I started to reason that perhaps I should treat these races as almost training sessions en route to London. During previous marathon build ups I have been able to race to personal best performances only to fail to mirror these performances on the big day.

Lisbon in 2008 was a perfect example of this. My DNF in Amsterdam 2005 was exactly the same. I was in awesome shape for both these marathons, but other factors disrupted the ultimate performance, which was a personal best effort in the marathon.

Following the previous weeks Trafford 10k performance, which was disappointing but I accepted it in the bigger scheme of things (comment from Dave Norman to me after the race "it's all about London" or words to that effect - you can't expect a cracking 10k time during this phase of a marathon build up "Look at Andi Jones" he'd said) I was keen on a very solid effort at Reading, and felt low 68 - maybe just under, was likely.

However, my week hadn't gone great, and was a typical week in a marathon build up. I ran 22 miles the day after Trafford and felt great, but this lead me into a few days of feeling jaded. I opted for a 12 x 1 min fartlek session as part of a 10.5 mile hilly run in midweek over a specific session to keep myself from getting too tired, but on my second run on Thursday I was finding it harder than I should have to run 6.15 pace and saw this as a sign so decided on a day off on Friday - my first for weeks and weeks.


I felt better on a six miler on Saturday so was upbeat for Reading and started to fancy my chances of an encouraging run. I raced Reading in 2008 and my memory was that it was a quick course, a few hills but a very quick finish.

Reading 2011 was a fairly loaded field of Kenyans and top domestic boys. My Bedford team mate Neilson Hall was making his half marathon debut, along with a host of other top Brits - Wicks, Webb, Robinson, Tickner, Pepper.

I was sure to set off steadily as a decent field could draw me through the mile too quick and this thankfully didn't happen. I was feeling ok, nothing special, I wasn't flying along but was clipping off decent splits - albeit unreliable in the absence of my GPS (note to self - wear this in London).

At five miles I was established in a group with two guys from Highgate and the three of us worked together. I made an effort to relax and went through 10k in just under 32 minutes - noticing that the course was a fair bit more undulating than I recalled from 2008.

I worked through the miles with the Highgate boys without ever feeling like I was really shifting, or slowing. I was just locked into a monotonous pace, totally devoid of another gear to slip into. My legs felt a bit more wobbly than I'd have liked at times, but I was running fairly strongly and certainly not slowing. Solid but unspectacular is how I'd describe things.

I dropped both the Highgate runners in the final mile - one of them by only a few seconds, but nonetheless suggests I finished well, but the time of 69:12 was a disappointment. I felt absolutely knackered warming down and for the rest of the day.

As the day went on I started to appreciate the run a bit more and wasn't too disappointed with it - I have to see it for what it is. Fact is I am very focused on London now and my training has really been geared to that end. If I was looking to run a fast half marathon would I have run 22 miles just six days previous? Of course I wouldn't have.

So with four weeks to go I feel in a good place. I've had to tweak things only very slightly in the last couple of weeks (I did 83 miles last week and I had planned more, but had to have that day off to get my legs back).

The plan this week is to train normally through to the Oakley 20 on Sunday 27th, which is on a testing course starting just a mile from my house. I'd like to do that at 5.30 pace, which is slightly slower than my anticipated marathon pace, but with the hilly course and miles in my legs something in that region would suffice.