Cape Town Tracks: Vuvuzelas on the run: Vienna half marathon

Our Vienna half-marathon on Sunday went off pretty much as planned. With no intention to do anything other than a relaxed amble through the heart of Austria's capital city, we settled on a 2.30 as a reasonable result. In the end, we clocked an elapsed time of 2.28, though our actual running time for the 21 was 2.18.

We were lucky enough to be able to spend the night before at a friend's flat right next to the start. I could go downstairs, put our togbags in the bag drop truck (picture right), and go back up to finish breakfast!

The Vienna marathon and half marathon are, unusually I think, run more or less together. The start is at the foot of the Reichsbrucke across the Danube heading into the city; the half-marathon groups line up on the right-hand side of the centre island, and the marathon on the left. Unusually, both events set off more or less together at 9 am, though they are separated for the first kilometre or two. In case you think that's a bit late for a marathon, remember this is the northern hemisphere spring and Vienna in April is chilly. In the preceding week, we'd had to wrap up thoroughly as overnight temperatures hovered close to freezing and daytimes seldom went above the mid-teens. Still, temperature at the start was good for running, at about 15 degrees. It warmed up to about 20 at the finish, though the fresh wind created a noticeable chill factor. I wore a coolmax-type T-shirt under my running vest and was glad to have it, though at times I was tempted to remove it. I took off my Buff at about halfway and replaced it about a kilometre from the finish (for the TV cameras, you know).

Compared with our experience in Paris and London marathons, the first obvious difference is the smaller field (the Vienna organisers said there were more than 33 000 entrants, but I couldn't establish if they meant in total). The overall organisation was acceptable to good, but it could stand improvement in areas such as management of registration and general control of the start and post-finish. Having said that, I'm probably looking at it from the point of view of the foreign entrant, and it seems to me Paris and London get more foreigners.

Registration: I'd have liked better signposting and more English-language assistance. Great goody bag with plenty of breakfast cereal and energy bar samples. T-shirt costs extra.

Start: Lack of clear signposting, no marshalling that I could see to ensure runners were in the right category, and inaudible announcements.

The Race: Nice flat route that takes in Vienna's cultural highlights, a combination of city streets, pleasant wooded areas, waterside stretches.

Beware of uneven road surfaces - some tricky humps and ruts, and stretches of tram tracks. Patches of good spectator support, though not nearly as voluble as Paris and London. Good marshalling management en route, and good management and supplies at the refreshment stations. Incidentally, we met several South African fellow competitors...Saffers seemed to be the only patriotic ones - I was wearing my full kit in the colours of the flag, including a matching Buff.

Oh, and another thing: big marathons usually provide music of various kinds - live or canned - along the route. This must be the only one in which you are wafted along to the strains of Strauss. It's not only delightful, it occasionally seems to match my cadence. Other musical performances included members of the local fire brigade blowing vuvuzelas at the roadside...

Finish: Great end between grandstands is spoilt a little by lack of direction immediately after. Excellent goody bag with recovery drink, snacks, etc. Struggled to find the bag drop trucks; these are located outside the finish festival area, which seems silly. If it had been really cold we would have been very uncomfortable while we tried to find where we could locate our warm clothing. Results were out soon after, by the way.
Startline, 4 hours after the gun: No sign that a marathon start had taken place. A truly impressive clean-up job - the video taken less than hour after the start shows how it should be done.