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There was another good turn out of Gala Harriers at the inaugural Edinburgh Forthside Half Marathon on Sunday. Martin Clarke was the fastest harrier over the out and back course along the Leith waterfront, clocking 1.26.38.Dave Nightingale produced a personal best time of 1.27.12 and must be feeling very confident of setting a best time at the London marathon next month, after this performance. Robin Murray clocked 1.28.45, next was John Patterson running his best half marathon time of 1.36.23, with Margo Crosbie finishing as first lady harrier, also in a personal best time of 1.37.34.

Eileen Nicol was next to finish in 1.38.12, just in front of surprise entry Graham Capper, who proved you don’t have to overdo the long distance training to finish a half marathon as he clocked a comfortable 1.38.24. Crossing the line close together were Will McDermott and Mary Crawford, both finishing in 1.41, with Allan Gordon running a respectable 1.43.45.

There then followed a bit of organisational meltdown, as race officials were overwhelmed by the volume of finishers trying to cross the finish line. At one stage there were hundreds and hundreds of runners trying to finish, who had to wait and queue patiently before they got through the finish funnels to collect their goody bags and medals. Caught up in this mayhem, was Dawn Grant and Julie Anderson, Dawn stopped her watch at 1.58 and Julie just managed to dip below the 2 hours mark clocking 1.59.

Worst affected in this fiasco, was Caroline McDermott, who despite clocking a personal best time of 2.07.30, had to stand around and wait more than half an hour before she could relax, get changed and have a drink. It would be fair to say that there were a lot of very, very unhappy people at the end of this race and organisers will have to ensure they can cater for the 4000 runners who ran this year and not the 400 they could cope with.

Next race for the harriers is the National 6 Stage Road Relays at Livingston on Saturday 1^st of April.

Posted on Monday, March 27th, 2006 at 8:05 am and is filed under Race Reports.
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