Tracey, Rhona, Zoe and I headed for Glasgow bright and early on the Sunday morning. With relative ease we found the car park with lots of spaces. A nice calm start.
Zoe and Rhona were starting to look a little bored with the hanging around and Tracey and I were
probably getting a little too excited for them so they headed to the station for hot chocolate. Tracey and I went in hunt of Haile Gabrselassie (well I did Tracey just tagged along humoring me). We waited for absolutely ages, saw many other sporting celebs including a Commonwealth boxer Charlie Flynn and a whole load of other athletes that I can't remember the names of.
Then we found ourselves beside the BBC outside broadcast. Tracey and I drew little attention to ourselves trying to take a selfie next to Dougie Vipond. Not a bad looking bloke in the flesh, although I thought he'd be bigger!
As the start time got closer and there was still no Haile we decided, as we were both getting a bit antsy to get into our start pen, that we would head to the start as the warm up had already started.
It is always quite an impressive sight to see the sea of runners all the way up through George Square. There were approximately 13,000 runners took part in the half I believe. Hugely impressive numbers of people in one place. Once the warm up was started we had the wait until all of the different waves had started.
Zoe and Rhona were a bit up St Vincent Street and got a great picture of Haile (to be added) heading off up the hill. Unfortunately 3 miles later he pulled out with asthma problems. Tracey may have been getting nervous about starting, or she could genuinely have just been like a bored toddler, but she did spend a lot of time asking "when do we start?", "when does this start to get fun Jane?" and lots of "I am cold", "I am fed up". Finally it was the pink wave turn to move forward to the start line. I love this bit, everyone who are doing it for the first time are nervous and excited, those of us who are more seasoned runners just move forward thinking "come on let me get running". I love running in Glasgow and in particular the half marathon. It gets me really excited every time, despite having run in fairly consistently since 1988! It has taken several different routes since then and this year was to be a different one again. I had no idea where we were going this time.
Zoe and Rhona were waiting for us on St Vincent Street and high fived us! St Vincent Street is a tough start and everyone always runs off far too fast and then gradually slows down as the hill gets steeper towards the top. Then as you crest the top of the hill the first fantastic view of the sea of runners hits you. A stunning snake of runners heading out for miles in front of you. Gradually we wound our way around the streets until we could see the snake heading up onto the Kingston Bridge. As we crested the hill of the bridge I said to Tracey to take a moment to look at the view up the Clyde because other than this race you don't get the chance to stop on the bridge and look. We had great fun waving at car drivers who were tooting and bus loads of Celtic fans heading to wherever the game was. At the top of the hill there was a piper marking one of the mile markers. This atmosphere is what makes the Glasgow Half Marathon so good. The sooner a marathon makes it back to Glasgow the better - I would sign up in a heart beat.
Once we were over the bridge the hard work started, winding our way through the streets of Glasgow. As always the Glasgow people came out and supported the runners with great enthusiasm. We reached Pollock Park first, this was usually the second park but the route was reversed at this point, which confused me no end. As we headed out of the park, at mile 6, I felt my right foot ping a bit. It has been quite sore over the last few months but had settled. I slowed up quite a bit and let Tracey head on. I didn't want Tracey to know my foot was hurting as it was her first half marathon and I wanted her to just crack on and run it and not worry about me. Eventually I caught up with her again and we ran together until around 8 miles when my foot really started hurting again. By this point I decided to give up pushing on and just meander around enjoying the atmosphere and taking some pictures. I got talking to different people on the way back, it was just great fun.
The last mile was different from the last time I ran it and we had to pass through the Wall of Support where there was a massive bill board on the wall which flashed up messages of support. I did send Tracey a message saying "Go Tracey - It'll be fine. So proud to be running with you in your first half marathon" but she said she didn't even see the wall of support, not sure how, it was massive!
Into the last mile, my foot was not bad at this point because I had chosen to slow down a bit and just enjoy the run. It was a tough last mile because it went on for ages, but then just as you thought it couldn't go any further we turned the corner and there was the finish line. Fantastic!
Tracey had ran an excellent time and was adamant that she would never run another half marathon EVER again. And you know what, I do actually believe her, she doesn't need to , she is a cyclist at heart but I am so proud of her achievements. She has proven to the Doctors that you don't need to necessarily reach straight for medication and that a strict regime of diet and exercise can actually do the same thing and manage diabetes without medication. Hugely proud to have been part of your journey Tracey.
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| Rhona and Zoe saw I right at the end with tea and coffee. Good one girls!!!! |
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| No one tell Zoe's Mum how much she spent in Glasgow!!! |
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| My number one supporter.... |
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| Half Marathon Selfie. (can you see Tracey sorting her socks - swollen feet!) |
As always Glasgow was amazing, full of fun and laughter and the best end of term party I ever go to. Big hi and well done to all my fetchie pals who ran in Glasgow. Big whoop to Kate who ran under difficult circumstances (wakey baby and sicky husband :) ). There is also a really long story (to be kept for another day) about how I managed to get us lost in the depths of the Glasgow suburbs, but thanks to Tracey's unerring sense of direction we made it back to the motorway unscathed - much to Rhona's relief. :)
don't worry, be happy :)
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