My Event Ratings

Overall score		60%
Would you do it again?		Maybe
Details:
Scenery		60%
PB potential		60%
Atmosphere		40%
Organisation		80%
Value		60%
Beginner-friendliness		60%

In short: 1st half flat as a pancake but 2nd half had enough incline to kill tired legs. And about a mile of the course is on cobbles!
Date of review: October 1, 2012

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Overall score		60%
Would you do it again?		Maybe
Details:
Scenery		100%
PB potential		60%
Atmosphere		60%
Organisation		40%
Value		60%
Beginner-friendliness		60%

In short: They tried hard
In full: Parking organisation hard obviously gone wrong early morning, and they struggled to get everybody in. This led to a 20 minute delay to the start, during which all the runners were left standing in the increasing heat. The announcer on the PA should have had better information - he didn't even know how far the half-marathon distance was. The course was certainly more undulating than flat/undulating - if there were any flat parts I don't remember them! The course was in general well-marked, although the split for 1st/2nd lap could have been better. There were plenty of marshals but none of them seemed to have any information, or be at all interested in the race they were marshalling. I assume they were BHF volunteers rather than running volunteers. Gels at the 8km water station were good, although the marshal who I was about to grab a bottle from suddenly bent down to get a gel for somebody else, and he was the last marshal so I had to double back to grab water - a bit amateur. There was also then a big gap in water stations between about 12km and then one at about 16km and another just after that, at what was a pretty hot time of day. The shower at 17km was nice. The last 2 km was tough - 1km downhill, and 1km uphill to the line. The finish time display seemed to be lagging about 20 seconds behind the chip time. I started pretty close to the front - probably only 2-3 seconds from the gun but my chip time was 14 seconds slower than the gun time showing on the screen, which was a bit odd. Finally the medal and goody bag were a total letdown. The medal was the worst I've ever received, and the goody bag was a cheap chocolate and some shampoo samples, what a waste of time.
Date of review: October 5, 2011

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