Thursday, March 23, 2017

Milton Keynes Half marathon 2016 - my race review

Crickey, I just found this lurking in my drafts folder. Given that Milton Keynes 2017 is not far away I thought I had better fling this out there before I end up over a year out of date...

My race review (Monday 2nd May 2016)

General impressions -
Course: 8/10 - simple, quick, well sign-posted and marshalled. Couple of sections where the footing was a bit rough moving between road and park land paths.
Marshalling: 9/10 - great, cheery and friendly team. Though not particularly evident around the start area which seemed a little odd given the congestion.
Facilities: 8/10 - The stadium facilities are great. Though I did have to play hunt the shortest bathroom queue a couple of times, which is tricky when they are spread around the perimeter of the stands.
Organisation: 9/10 - I didn't enjoy the lack of marshalling in the start zones, but the overall experience from sign up to finish line is very well done. The team clearly benefit from the experience of becoming a calendar regular.
Crowd / support: 8/10 - always an enthusiastic and supportive crowd in Milton Keynes. Even the car drivers put out by road closures were relatively jolly, or at least that was what I told myself as I smiled and waved a "thank you" to them.
My effort: 10/10 - I could not fault my effort on the day (I could fault my pre-race training), my pacing was spot on and I was realistic about my target.

Half-marathon #11
How my run went: 
"It went really well, curbed my enthusiasm at the start, enjoyed the middle, and only really entered the hurt locker for the last 2km. Time not stellar but a good improvement on four weeks ago. The half marathon course at least was definitely an improvement on past years - only two major underpasses that I remember, and no gradients that went on long enough or were steep enough to cause much discomfort."

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