2010: The Great Scottish Run

The Great Scottish Run was my first competitive run, that I mostly did to help raise some money for an amazing charity my friend set up and runs across inner-city areas in London. I grew up in Scotland, but moved to London earlier in 2010 and the idea of running at home appealed to me.

Truth be told, I hadn’t made the best preparations- staying with an old friend in Glasgow, chatting and drinking wine late into the night, before crashing on the couch and sleeping fitfully until it was Time. I got up with a headache, had some toast, scribbled my emergency contact details onto the back of my race-number and called a taxi.

Arriving at George Square, in the centre of Glasgow, I was overwhelmed by the crowds, alarmed at the length of the queues for the toilet, intimidated by the yoga-runner stretching going on all around me. It was all a bit more serious than the “fun run” I had anticipated. I found my starting pen, with all the other slow runners and made a bee-line for the back of it, just to be sure I was out of the way of the others. We slowly shuffled around George Square until our group was lined up at the start and our count-down began.

Now, if you know much about Scotland, you’ll know there are a few hills around about the place. Although the route has changed a little since 2010, the GSR still starts in the same way, with a very long, not quite gentle incline up St.Vincent Street for the first mile and it immediately zapped all my hopes of an easy glide to the finish line! Then, back in my day, there was another surge as you climb up the ramp onto the Finnieston Bridge, though that was noticeably easier due to the pep-talks from a cheerful charity runner telling us all it was “a lovely day for a run” and that he would “see to it that you all make it to the finish line” – probably not entirely true, but encouraging nonetheless.

I don’t remember much else about the body of the run, except that I kept going. There was bits of Glasgow I recognised suddenly and other bits I’d not seen before. There were bagpipes and djembe drums, radio stands playing pop and some Asian dub-step running past Govanhill. There were spectators and other runners, cheering us and each other on. And then the always glorious sight of the finish line.

I made a valiant but pretty pathetic “sprint” for the finish and found myself over the line and dry-heaving. I know, glamorous. A steward came to check I was okay, giving me a bottle of water and a banana, before pointing me in the direction of the medals.

The medals! I do love a medal. Ever since my first triumphs at school sport’s day I’ve been drawn to those shiny, precious, gold discs and have never understood why they don’t give them out for stuff all the time- I could’ve done with a medal after passing my violin exams, or my German language course, and as for my degree- four years all for a curled up piece of paper and a bill for my graduation gown..

I collected my medal and gazed it at it for a good few minutes, feeling like a champion for running the whole way without stopping. I slung the medal around my neck and headed for the subway, a shower and then a train back to London.

A hearty thanks still goes out to everyone who sponsored me

and helped to raise £395 for www.xlp.org.uk

Kathryn MacNeill

Andrew Pritchard

Caroline Bellamy

Marylou Khalfa

Jo Kirkcaldy

Natalie Tetley

Emma Henderson

Kerri  Rance

Emily Rootham

Sian Frost

Rosemary Galley

Roy Terry

Andrew Bradley

Abbi Tracey

Claire McCall

Thomas Ashmead

Aaron Tindall

P and Rach

Catherine Bulpitt

Natalie de Laune

Adrian & Fran Wolton