Ilkley Half Marathon

[MattPo]

My son convinced me to enter this, and so today I did it for the second time. Hugely popular and very disruptive to traffic. I hate the number of folk - most Road runners are weird and have headphones in so you can't engage them in banter. I also hate being told I'm awesome - when clearly I'm not. The Jazz Band in Addingham were great and so was the free pint at the end. My son beat me by 17 minutes, but he is 37 years younger. Crawled in under 2 hrs and felt I may have been faster if I wasn't recovering from Covid.

[Travs]

Nice one Matt.

I find road/track runners decent fellas, much like fell runners. That said, i don't do any "local" type road races. But i did a league track race today and the merriment was flowing as we waited to start.

But i do agree with the atmosphere surrounding a lot of lower-level road races.... getting told you're "smashing it" 400 yards into a 10km is hardly accurate.

[TurboTom]

My son convinced me to enter this, and so today I did it for the second time. Hugely popular and very disruptive to traffic. I hate the number of folk - most Road runners are weird and have headphones in so you can't engage them in banter. I also hate being told I'm awesome - when clearly I'm not. The Jazz Band in Addingham were great and so was the free pint at the end. My son beat me by 17 minutes, but he is 37 years younger. Crawled in under 2 hrs and felt I may have been faster if I wasn't recovering from Covid.

I was there yesterday, pacing 90 minutes for Northern Pacing Volunteers. It was a great event and a great day all round. Loved the jazz band and the long downhill section through the wooded bits up to Addingham.

Interestingly Travs, the winner was a pretty good fell runner - Nathan Edmondson in 1.06 and 3rd place Jack Cummings was 3rd. Former top UK fell contender Graeme Pearce was well up the field in about 1.15 too.

Maybe I'm not as curmudgeonly as you both but personally I think that cheers and support is always welcome - it's nice that folk stand out to watch and it's probably very encouraging for people giving it a go in these local races.