Great Scottish Run

Sunday dawned as predicted, cool with very little wind and the hint of some sunshine to come. A goodly number of harriers headed into town for the day's races both to race and support with the prospect of almost perfect conditions, there would be no excuses for the runners today!

Advertising our trail races prior to the start

No sooner were we (Marion, Gordon and I) in George Square than we met the Beveridge clan - mum, Julie and Louise along with Emily in pram and soon after John Boyd and Allison Johnstone.

Julie and mum, note her fast paced runners' number

A couple of well known characters 'taking part' in one of Saturday's races

The typical 'great' organisation meant one bus only for green wave runners in Brunswick Street and a 60 meter queue just to drop off your bag. It turned out, eventually, that the other green bus was parked in Hutcheson Street beside the white vehicles - I didn't know whether to curse at McGills Buses or Brendan Foster, certainly not a 'great' start, fully fifteen minutes wasted. As I had allowed plenty of time I was still able to get in a decent warm up before taking my place in the green pen. Having assured Marion earlier that they were much stricter these days about folk starting in a faster pen than they should I was surprised to see so many pink bibs beside me. I (almost) ignored this second display of poor organisation and stayed calm, concentrating on my own race plan.

After my debacle at the HamilTEN the week before (thanks for not mentioning it in your report Martin) I was determined to get my pace right this time. To that end I changed the screen on my Garmin to show only two displays, time and pace. There are mile markers all the way round and I have run the course once or twice(!) so didn't need distance and the consequent extra space meant even I could read the screen easily (or so I thought, more on that later). Nine minute miling was my goal, 1 hour 57 minutes for 13 miles, just enough wriggle room should I hit problems along the way. 

We were finally off only a couple of minutes late and headed west up St. Vincent Street with me trying not to be swept up in the general enthusiasm all around me. A first mile in 8.43 up the hill was certainly a vast improvement on my far-too-fast 7.12 of the week before. It wasn't long before we encountered the results of the poor pen management in the square. The course narrows to just a single lane on the approach to the Kingston bridge and everyone immediately in front of me almost came to a halt. As we resumed running the cause became obvious, two runners, side by side, running at something around 12 minute mile pace had managed to unintentionally impede dozens of us. I wasn't in the least surprised to notice two pink numbers as I ran past them, reasoning that as we were almost at the two mile marker they must have started two waves ahead of where they should, grrr!

Staying calm and checking my watch almost as often as Julie does, there's not much else to report, thirteen miles is a long way when you're operating around your current limit. I stayed more or less on target but coming through the McLellan Arch into Glasgow Green I glanced at my wrist to see 1.59 and something. I know the finish is a much longer drag than it looks and my dismay was such that all the impetus drained from me for forty meters or so until, disbelieving, I looked again to see I had misread the time and I was still under 1.58!! Doh! Gratefully dragging myself over the line in 1.57.45 I cursed my eyesight for giving me such a shock and then it was out to the green itself to find as many harriers as I could. Sadly David Wardrope had headed away already but Jim Holmes and I shook hands on the mutual completion of our twenty seventh GSR. I'll shake David's hand when I next see him.

The results are;

10k

Graeme Lindsay, 167th place in 40.27
Callum Wright, 237th in 42.19 and a pb
Kirsty Wilson, 416th in 44.51
Douglas Meldrum, 1,640th in 53.04
John McBride, 1,719th in 53.29
Colin Banks, 2,811th in 58.19

Half marathon

Iain Tomb, 442nd in 1.29.41
Julie Beveridge, 454th in 1.29.55
Stephen Phimister, 577th in 1.32.36
Jim Holmes, 1,108th in 1.39.06 closely followed by
David Wardrope, 1,178th in 1.39.43
NB Claire McSorley also ran (unnoticed by me, sorry Claire) and finished in an excellent 1.53.55
David Searil, 3,663rd in 1.57.45
John Boyd, 4,261st in 2.01.44
Monica Houston, 5.539th in 2.09.51
Kevin Farmer, sadly, was a dnf

Mention must be made here of the stunning performance of Gordon's other half, Marion. Not only did she run a pb by fully five minutes in 1.33.21 she was also 39th female and first FV60-64 by over thirteen minutes wow! We really have to get her signed up to the harriers...

Some action shots here;

Made it onto the telly again in Monday night's highlights

The winners were Timothy Torotich in 1.01.29 and Edith Chelimo in 1.07.38. Ex-harrier Stuart Gibson, racing a distance, in his own words, well outside his comfort zone, still came home in an excellent 20th place in a time of 1.09.08 closely followed by another ex-harrier Kevan Harvey, fresh from his victory at HamilTEN last weekend, only 31 seconds later.

A big thanks to Frances, Geo, Gordon, Mark, Emma and Jim for their support and apologies to anyone I've missed. Photo credits to Gordon, Frances, Jim and the bbc.