martinlittle.com:thinkThin

This morning was the innaugural Edinburgh Forthside Half Marathon. Overall, I'm afraid it hasn't left me overimpressed, for the following reasons:

• cost: at £22, this is not a cheap race (the London Marathon only costs £26). OK, so these are not huge amounts of money, but it is still pricey.
• transport: everyone was encouraged to drive to Ocean Terminal, the big shopping complex for the start and finish of the race. When there are already a number of established bus routes, it seems crazy to ask 4000-odd people to drive there. I took the bus, but thanks to incorrect information on the Lothian Buses site, it cost me a taxi ride to Princes Street first. The single entrance to Ocean Terminal soon became overwhelmed by traffic, and the race start was postponed by 15 minutes. Poor start.
• baggage area: seeing as everyone was meant to drive, no bags were supplied to put kit in, and the baggage area was tiny and unmanned, apart from two bored security guards.
• PA system: there was a PA system, but you had to be right in front of Ocean Terminal to hear it. The holding area for all runners was at the end of OT, meaning it was left to word of mouth regarding the start time change.
• start organisation: giving this a heading suggests there was some. There was absolutely nothing. Instead of the fastest at the front, it turned in to a free-for-all, which only results in fast runners being annoyed by having to go past slow runners, and slow runners annoyed by being ... pushed past by more experienced and faster runners. There was a closed barrier across the road, too, which made things interesting.
• timing: no ChampionChip for timing is rubbish, particularly for a race costing £22.
• route: the route was uninspiring, apart from the run along the shore road and the nice out and back to Cramond on the esplanade. The annoying little detours which can only have been there to add half a mile, were frustrating and pointless.
• finish: when I finished, I came into a funnel and had to give my race finish order. The last thing you want to do after a run like that is stop dead for a few minutes. As larger numbers of people finished, that funnel extended back over the finish line, meaning a large number of people would not have the joy of completion.
• goody bag: the goody bag consisted of adverts, a bottle of water and an Alpen bar. Not even a t-shirt. The water ran out for those finishing further down the field.

As others have pointed out in the Runners World forums and ratings, it was far from a good race and seemed to be far more of a commercial venture than anything else. I ran it as it was in Edinburgh and it's always good to support local events, but unless things change for next year, I won't be back to run it.

It's not all bad, though. The weather was nice (dry, warm and only lightly windy), plus my (unofficial) time was 1hour 33mins, which is only 2 minutes off what I wanted, and was only marginally over 7 minute miles. All I need to do is double that in four weeks time. Here's the animated version of my route with full stats.