There are a few things that confuse me about The Great Scottish Run. The main one is: “why would the organisers think that people *want* to run on a motorway bridge?”. Glasgow is littered with lovely bridges, in fact they close three other (lovely) bridges for this race, so surely they could reroute? Maybe I’m alone in my thoughts. Anyway, I’d entered the 10k, the precursor to the main event, and took to the streets on a dry and cool day – perfect for running. Both events head up St Vincent street, round Anderston, and onto Junction 19 sliproad of the M8, running south against the northbound traffic. Off at Junction 20, and into Tradeston. The half marathoners head off for a loop round Pollock Park at this point, to rejoin the 10k route later to cross the Squinty Bridge. From the Squinty Bridge there’s just a quick 2mile blast to the finish at Glasgow Green. Despite my moaning about the motorway, the route is great, and the event is very well organised. Loads of support, bands, drummers, pipers and random bampots trying to cross the road. A great fun day out! Looking at the results for all Carnethies, myself and Lina Mangen finished well under the hour (around 39mins and 50mins respectively) for the 10k. In the half marathon, Senga Plain romped past a struggling Haile Gabrselassie to finish under 2h 15mins.
Results: http://greatscottishrun.com/results/AdvancedSearch/
Jim Hardie