2013, 4: Run to the Beat

And then came Run to the Beat. I had high hopes for RTTB:

1. After the lonely roads of Coll, I was looking forward to a big race, with spectators and support.
2. I love running around London, and the route promised a lot.
3. Billed as “London’s Music Half Marathon” I was expecting some great tunes.
4. Sponsored by Nike, it promised a high-spec race. I was looking forward to great organisation and an extra special goody bag.
5. My friend, Abbi, had come down from Scotland to run it with me.

Oh dear.

1. 19,000 runners is a whole lot more than 134.
   

   © http://www.runtothebeat.co.uk/

The race started like this, and pretty much stayed this busy throughout. I found it really difficult to get into my stride and to run my own race, at my own pace (my running mantra). A lot of the race was taken up with trying not to trip up, avoiding the person in front’s heel, and finding a gap in the crowd.

2. The route was, not to put too fine a point on it, a shambles.

Compounding the busyness was some pretty poor route planning. Things started well enough: a run through the park and out the back gate, along closed roads then we hit the barracks between Mile 4 and 5. Here there were two sharp left turns on the route, little loops to make up the race distance, reasonably common on races. However, on this race, the organisers of RTTB thought 19,000 runners would easily flow through a gate a metre wide, run the loop and then flow out of a second metre-wide gate again. Not so. By my watch we lost 10 minutes queuing to get into the barrack and another 5 on the way out again. As we were leaving the race organisers were telling arriving runners not to do the barracks loop, meaning they missed out on running the full distance and grabbing a refreshment at the water station inside the barracks (on a hot, sunny day and the next water station 2 miles further along). The route continued along too narrow paths, half-shut roads, with the pace-makers really struggling to keep to their times (at one point we saw pace-makers of different times running alongside).

3. I get it, its hard to make music happen for 13.1 miles. But for billed as a music marathonI would expect a bit more than your usual race entertainment. There were a few DJs set-up with mediocre sound-systems and not a lot else. I loved South London Samba, but they were also victims of the Barracks Loop Fiasco and didn’t get nearly enough love for my liking. Also, heading up the bill, as far as I can tell was Kate Lawler. Say what you will about Kate, maybe she has great taste in running music, but to me she’s just that girl off of Big Brother 2002. C’mon Nike, you can do bigger and better surely?

4. So we’ve already covered the organisation, or lack thereof. And for a goody bag at the finish- not even a banana! What is the world coming to when a girl can’t get a banana and a digestive biscuit at the end of a race? Not cool.

5. But this amazing superstar did come and did run, and dragged me through disorganisation and dehydration to the end! Lovely girl that she is.

* And in case you think I’m just a cantankerous old runner, race organisers sent out an official apology, along with a £10 refund on race entry and a free Nike t-shirt to all participants.