UPDATE: This blog entry is about Reading Half Marathon 2009, for 2010 entry please click here.

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• Browse through the whole Reading Half Marathon 2009 photo set here.

Oh, what a race! Thousands of runners, millions of supporters and a huge pile of photos. It sounds like any odd Sunday by now, but the race was sure special… and the supporters..oh they we’re unbelievable. We’ve already heard hundreds of  well dones and you-can-do-its already but hey, we’re in Reading – the people are definitely reading here:) All of those clever types with their names on the shirt got their usual share of exposure but who would’ve even dreamt of hearing “Come on one-seven-nine-three-nine!”

Another fine Sunday and another race. Hogweed Hilly Half – 270 finishers and 1105 photos. I was never good at statistics but this looks like we should have snapped everyone here and it was an absolute pleasure to be taking photos there.

Hogweed Hilly Half V

The highlights:

• Probably the loudest support crowd I’ve seen, it felt like there was at least a hundred of them.
• The runners thanking us when passing by for snapping them. Wow!
• Cars giving way to runners at the finish.
• The hills.

Hogweed Trotters broke the record by posting the race results earliest ever and we’re breaking ours by posting the photos latest ever.  I could start telling you about stuff that kept in the way, but I won’t.

Instead of explanation

Hey we’ve just covered the first spring race this year! And it really did feel like spring, the sun was shining and it felt like the wind can take you off the ground any minute. But we survived and so did most of the runners (it seems). Don’t know if it was the wind or the spring but everyone looked very happy. Seriously, I haven’t seen so many smiling faces even in “fun runs” like Santa Run or Love Run. Just look at them.

Clapham Common 10k

I guess Doug Larson was right when he said “Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.” Clever man, he knew what Clapham Common 10k will be like almost 100 years before it happened.