This morning I ran in the FRESH 'N' LO Great Scottish Run, at the Half Marathon distance, in Glasgow.

I got up at 6am to observe that it was in fact raining outside, rather convincingly. A fitting start to my first race, so I breakfasted and headed off (with the support of dearg) and caught the 8am train to Glasgow. A little delay meant that there was about 45 minutes to warm up (and keep warm) in slight rain.

Soon enough, it was time to line up, and here I made a bit of a mistake. I positioned myself in the middle of the first section of my assigned group, but this turned out to be much too far back. The start was very slow, and rather frustrating; there were over 20,000 entrants for the event (over half for the longer distance, as I understand it), and that is a big mass of people. Starting far back, even with a lot of weaving and suchlike it was rather slow and frustrating over the Kingston Bridge (narrow lane to run in).

As I made my way forward, and the course opened up through various streets heading down to Bellahouston park, I perhaps overcompensated for the slow start. In any case I made it to the half way point fast enough, and from the far point back towards the start found inspiration from the various pipers and supporters lining the route.

The last five miles or so were challenging (I certainly had no great burst of speed for the deceptivly long finishing straight), but I pushed on to finish in (by my watch) 1 hour, 35.5 minutes. Faster than I could have hoped for!

An excellent experience for my first race, the weather cooled by the rain but not too wet (but big puddles!), decent course and support (particularly considering the weather) and a time I'm very happy with.