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I had quite an early start this morning, as I’d volunteered to help my running club with the start marshalling at the 2008 Glasgow Women’s 10k.

I’d not marshalled before, so was quite looking forward to it. The Women’s 10k is a big event (over 12,000 participants), and while there are professional stewards and event organisers, the club has been invited to help with the start marshalling for a few years now: I was to help out with the ‘pulse’ signs (to phase the runners so the faster runners were at the front), and ensure runners weren’t moving too far forward. With a complimentary pink t-shirt (Not sure it suits me), and an impressive sounding ‘Race Official’ tag, it was all very enjoyable helping out. Nobody seemed to want any of my safety pins though

After the start, and our responsibilities finished, we were free to go and watch the race and lend our support to the runners, so I barrelled over to Pollok Park to catch the lead runners pass by at the top of the biggest hill on the course (named “Sarah’s hill”). There was an impressive Elite field boosted by a number of Eritrean runners who were, I understand, seeking asylum in Glasgow, and had been invited to take part. I don’t (yet) know the winning time, but it was fast. And fellow club member Ian deserves a prize for his vocal support to all the club runners that passed by our various support pitches.

I took a number of pictures (click here) with my old compact camera (I need a new one!) during my travels.

All in all a fun day, and hopefully some great times will result for the Bella Girls. I’d hoped to get out for a run myself after getting home, but gave it a miss as I’ve not been feeling too great. Hoping it’s temporary, as I need to make some serious inroads over the next couple of weeks if I’m to get below the 45 minute time I’ve got in mind for next months Men’s 10k.

Update

• The Evening Times has a video piece on the race, and today’s results supplement is available online here too.
• The front page of the supplement is dominated by fellow Bella runners!
• And I even feature (bottom left, looking chirpy) on page 2 of the supplement.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2008 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Glasgow, Running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.