Woodley 10k and Wokingham 10k Review March/April 2019

Nr Reading, Sunday 14th April 6:45am

Soon after a disastrous Reading half when I’d blithely assumed I could run off being ill, I’d woken up in the middle of the night with what felt like a throat full of glass, a barking cough and a banging headache. Having been so recently bitten by racing when under the weather I dragged my wife out of bed to check my temperature. I was surprised when it came back normal, and reluctantly (sooooo reluctantly) decided I was probably ok to run. I took a couple of ibuprofen, and slowly pulled on my running gear.

We’re very lucky to have a number of companies locally to us organising events which means we’ve nearly always got a well priced option that’s not too far away. Barnes Fitness are one of those, run by a invested and caring husband and wife team who also take part in and support many of the other local events. It’s always clear with one of their events what you will get – efficient registration, chip timing, free photos, friendly marshals who know a lot of the runners personally and somewhere between a few hundred and a thousand competitors.

With that commonality in place, in the space of the last two weeks it’s been fascinating to compare and contrast two very different events that were very close together. The Wokingham 10k is a trail run around Dinton Pastures – a local nature reserve that is also used for the Summer Series.

Well known because of this, the run was cunningly made fresh by reversing the direction; something that really makes a surprising difference. With one lap for the 5k and two for the 10k you still had a pretty good idea of when to pull the trigger on the finishing sprint – even if the megaphone calling the finishers in front of you didn’t give a pretty big clue.

Dinton is mostly gravelled paths and unless there’s been a lot of rain, trail shoes usually aren’t necessary – but if the weathers been bad it can be a completely different kettle of fish. The race is very flat, with just a couple of minor bumps in the road. One of the benefits of taking place in the nature reserve is that there are existing cafes and toilet facilities, so a celebratory lunch or coffee is easy to arrange.

There’s also plenty of parking (charges do apply, bring coins or be prepared to use the ringgo app) although in this specific event the council had thrown things off by aerating the usual overflow carpark the day before, necessitating the use of a ‘overflow’ overflow that I didn’t even know existed, and being a good ten minutes further from registration caught a few people out and required a five minute delay to the start. There’s a water stop on the course and water and bananas at the finish.

Woodley, Sunday 14th April 9:29am

I was approaching the small ‘out and back’ loop as I passed the 5k mark. Despite running slightly ahead of the pace I’d decided was a safe bet given the state I was in, I could see the pacer exiting the loop as I entered it, a good two to three minutes in front of me. I’d started well, friends Barney and Gemma came past me half a k in but that was expected – my pace was holding up quite well. The only catch was that as I ran more of the race, more of the course was coming back to me from last year, when I really hadn’t enjoyed the back half in the way I was expecting to. The last two km of the run are a painful, slightly uphill battle, but although km 6-8 look like they should be downhill I’ve never managed to get my legs to turnover faster on the way down. It was time to focus and grind the rest of the run out.

With the first 3k on closed roads, and the rest with traffic controlled junctions the Woodley 10 is a fast but tough road race that for me was entirely car free.

Barney wrote about his breakthrough in the Woodley 10k in his post on limiting tech. With hindsight it would have been fascinating to see what happened if I’d left the watch behind as well.

Given enough time to space runners out, by the time you are required to run on pavement there’s usually room to move about as you need to in order to find your ideal pace. It’s not a particularly scenic race, and there aren’t as many spectators as some other events, but it’s a straightforward and well laid out course, and the restrictions on traffic mean that there’s not a lot of the course where you are alongside motorised vehicles.

Speaking of cars, there’s plenty of parking in the town center that’s free on a Sunday, keeping things nice and simple without annoying any of the locals.

There’s a large water station at around the 6 km mark which is a well chosen, off the road location, and another just short of 9 km, which understandably seemed to be a lot quieter – if it had been a hotter day I can imagine both stations would be hit hard. Something I hadn’t realised before the weekend which sums up the quietly competent way the race is organised is that every marshal was encouraged to grab some Haribo, cereal bars and water in case a runner needs emergency refuelling. There are a pair of concrete bollards just before the first water station – I’ve never seen anyone hit them, but it’s the sort of thing you can see coming.

Its always nice to have pacers running from every five minute interval from 40 to 90, but I still found it frustrating that despite finishing ahead of the my mark, I never saw ‘my’ pacer again, and I believe something similar happened for other pacers. This has happened at every paced race I’ve been on this year, but at least I’m used to it now and it’s no longer blowing up races.

Woodley, Sunday 14th April 9:59am

Sharp left at the final roundabout, cross the road as you wind up for the sprint finish, break right into the park and give it everything as you cover the last 150 meters round to the left and under the giant inflatable. I staggered slightly over the finish line and was grateful that a young lad dove in and grabbed my chip off my ankle for me allowing me to grab water and medal once I’d gathered myself. I quickly look at the watch – slightly slower than last year but given how rough I was feeling that felt like a very big win. If nothing else it was a great training run.

There’s a lot to be said for lining up for a race that feels familiar and is organised by runners and for runners. I’d always much rather run with a group of people than on my own and local events like these are a great way to build on top of those first few park runs, with consistent courses giving you an easy check on your fitness and/or progress.

Both of these runs couldn’t be more different – one a trail run in a nature reserve and one a very urban road race, but being able to turn up, say hello to a few people you know and just relax into the start of the race is something that really rewards you for staying local.

I’ve got the first of the summer series in a couple of weeks – lets see if I can take a minute off that 10k time when we get there.