runbritain Grand Prix 2013 kicks off with Mizuno Reading Half

Sunday 17 March sees one of the biggest road races on the calendar take place with the Mizuno Reading Half Marathon.

It's the first race in the 2013 runbritain Grand Prix series - which provides opportunities for intermediate to serious runners wanting to take their racing to the next level.

The race also incorporates the 2013 England Athletics Half Marathon Championships and all English individuals entered are eligible for a placing in the England Athletics Championships results.

The wheelchair event starts at 9:55am with the mass event, which will see 16,500 people take to the streets, starting at 10am in Green Park, 250m from the race site at Madejski Stadium.

Visit the event website for more information, however please note entries are now closed.

The event takes places on a flat fast course, taking in the highlights of the city centre of Reading where you will experience huge crowd support whilst also passing through the beautiful grounds of the University campus. It is a race for the experienced athlete looking for a new PB through to the complete beginner looking for a friendly safe and fun environment to run in.

It will provide a great opportunity for runners of all abilities to lower their runbritain handicap score, but there's one runbritain handicap scorer who can't make it because he will be competing in a different opening Grand Prix race in Australia on the same day.

That runner is British Formula One driver Jenson Button, who has been driving his runbritain handicap score down during his pre-season training. On his own website he talks about enjoying his 'break' during the F1 off-season by 'relaxing' in Hawaii. What he doesn't say is that he actually ran a sub-3-hour marathon whilst he was there and since then he has run a sub-80 minute half marathon at the Semi Marathon de Cannes in between testing sessions in Barcelona!

Jenson went in on the runbritain handicap scoring system at an impressive 7.4 through his 2:58:34 time in the Honolulu Marathon. He then lowered it by a full 2 points to 5.4 in the half marathon in Cannes.

Good luck to Jenson in Melbourne on 17 March and we look forward to seeing how many runners we can get under his handicap score at the Mizuno Reading Half Marathon here in the UK on the same day!