Reading Half Marathon 2014 #1in14

After last year’s successful Ball Brothers 13in13 challenge this year it’s time to step it up! The 14in14 challenge is to run 14!! yes 14 Half Marathons in 2014.

First on the list for this year was the Wokingham Half Marathon on the 9^th of February. Unfortunately it was cancelled at the day before due to the Course being flooded! We where I bit upset because we had trained hard in January for it but we went off skiing for a week and that cheered us upJ. The next half we had in the calendar was Reading on the 3nd of March. This race has a big reputation and big support on the course so we were really looking forward to it.

We got picked up by our running mate Hannah and arrived early and although it wasn’t raining the wind was blowing and it was pretty cold waiting around at the start line for 30 mins didn’t help but my fashionable bin liner did! Kelvin the “running legend” and fellow club member bummed into us just before the start line. Apparently you can’t miss the ball brothers :-)

We had a plan to go sub 2 hours for our first half of the year so we set off at a comfortable pace and enjoyed the first 5 miles and the various hills that appeared. As we approached the town centre the support was amazing! James had got our names put our Cove Joggers tops for #14in14 and all the way we were getting encouraging shouts from the crowd giving us both a real lift. 

As we approached the 10 mile mark I was feeling it and we had a quick discussion on how we going to run the last 3 and a bit. We decided to keep going at the same pace until mile 12 and then see how we feel. As I saw the 12 mile point we saw the 2hr pacer and I pushed a bit harder and James followed! With a mile to go we had really picked up the pace and where carving our way through the runners. I was put in a lot of effort and James was on my shoulder and was looking strong. As we reached 1000 meters to go I was struggling and James was pushing on and I had nothing left in the tank. We had the stadium in our sights and James had gone and was pulling away from me with every stride as we ran onto the track inside the stadium I was broken James was 10 seconds ahead!.

James finished in 1:55:10 a brilliant run! I came in on 1:55:24 we were both really pleased with a sub 2hr run.

Left to Right Kelvin, James, Hannah, Duncan

Reading was a brilliant start to 14in14 the crowd was amazing and the drinks stations where excellent will defiantly be doing this one again in the future.