Alloa Half Marathon

This was my first road race in a while and had a friend from uni running it so thought I may as well have a crack at it. After achieving a pb there last year (01:31:18) I was hoping to make a similar repeat performance with a sub-90 but my training’s been a wee bit erratic as of late so it wasn’t to be (01:33:19).

After starting far too quickly, it took me until about after Tillicoultry to get into a comfortable rhythm, which was then on the straight and narrow running along the foot of the Ochils. Beautiful countryside here so worth running even if you are averse to road races.

Overall it was the usual turnout of folk from the Scottish running scene, I know some faces and very few names but it was good to see Chris (01:19:15) and Ellie (01:27:18) there too, who both did very well.

The race’s top three runners were from Shettleston with a photo finish sprint at the end from winner Tewolderberhan Mengisteab (01:06:27) just scraping through past Matthew Gillespie (01:06:27). Tsegai Twelde (01:06:28) took bronze. Great entertainment for the assembled crowd at the end!

Photos from the race here (http://www.alloahalfmarathon.co.uk/ahm_gallery2011/index.html), I’m on the 7th photo looking constipated and Chris is on the 10th, thankfully not looking like the Westies are suffering from a dose of that infamous curry competition. All in all a good day out, well organised and only down point for me was being overtaken by a man in an orange morph suit wearing comedy sunglasses – 24th photo.