5 things you’ll feel during your first half-marathon

Many of you will have considered taking up running as a cheap and easy way of exercise.

You'll save on a gym membership, you can do it anywhere, and you can kid yourself it gives you a free pass to eat carbs five days a week, so long as you're training the day after. It's all well and good until race day arrives. I ran my second half-marathon on Sunday, but you can treat this as solid advice for your first long-distance race. If you don't find yourself saying at least two of these five things then, in all honesty, you're probably taking things too seriously and putting us chancers to shame.

"I should have set off earlier"

There's nothing worse than arriving at the venue, asking where you can leave your bag, and being told "you'll have to be quick". Blind panic really isn't conducive to a good run - try to get there in plenty of time, but not so early that you freeze your balls off waiting around for the start. It's a delicate balance.

"Proper training might have been a good idea"

I signed up for the race while being bored senseless by the Euro 2016 qualifier between Wales and Cyprus. If you're thinking "I'm sure that wasn't even that long ago", you'd be right. I signed up three weeks before the race date. This is a terrible idea. Don't do this.

"People are bastards"

It's the sort of thing that anyone living in London should be used to, or even anyone who has ever taken the tube. Or interacted with the general public. It might essentially be a jog around a park, but ultra-competitiveness doesn't take a day off. Still, when a 60-year-old guy in a running club vest shoves you in the back to overtake you for half a second, you just feel pity.

"Past experience means nothing"

With five kilometres to go, I worked out that I could get a really good time if I ran the last 5k in 21 minutes. "I've run 5k in 21 minutes before - this might be doable," I thought. Yeah, it doesn't work like that.

"F**k stairs"

Seriously, f**k 'em. Stairs are the devil.