Chapter Nineteen: Statistics of the Reading Half Marathon

It is interesting looking at some statistics in the Reading Half Marathon, and these generally show a decline in performance over the years, which is surprising as many people in those early days had not been runners. The table below reflects on the general downturn in performance, and similar statistics from other races over the years would, I am sure, produce the same picture.

Year	Winner	10th	50th	100th	250th	500th	1000th
1983 -	67:45
1984 -	64:39	68:25	73:23	75:36	80:30	84:24	89:34
1985 -	63:55	64:50	70:34	74:47	80:01	84:45	90:39
1986 -	62:39	65:04	71:71			83:29	89:08
1987 -	62:07	64:58	71:58	75:25		84:13	90:18
1988 -	63:16	64:51	73:27	76:13	81:08	85:56	91:52
1989 -	64:11	65:55	73:19	76:17	81:08	85:35	92:06
1990 -	63:32	66:47	73:16	76:40
1991 -	64:28	66:58	74:04	77:29	83:05	88:14	94:53
1992 -	62:20	- Race Short - Therefore Times Not Accurate
1993 -	61:38	67:03	75:42	79:05
1994 -	66:46	73:47	80:47	84:58	90:10	96:40	106:05
1995 -	64:49	70:39	79:12	82:24	88:31	95:35	105:27
1996 -	63:31	73:33	78:36	81:55	88:16	93:55	103:09
1997 -	64:50	66:42	73:42	78:15	85:01	89:56	98:21
1998 -	63:59	66:55	76:08	79:51	85:00	90:08	97:35
1999 -	64:19	68:29	78:07	82:01	86:51	92:37	100:13
2000 -	62:56	67:29	75:38	80:50	86:57	92:21	99:45

It should be pointed out that if it were not for the many overseas, in particular Kenyan athletes, who have competed in recent years, the times of the leading places above would be very much worse.