IN PERFECT conditions, more than 2,500 runners took part in the inaugural Scottish Half Marathon on Saturday, delivering another incredible sporting occasion following the Commonwealth Games.

Olympic and Commonwealth judo silver medallist Gemma Gibbons – wife of Pencaitland-raised judo ace Euan Burton, himself a gold medal winner at Glasgow – was the official race starter and set the runners off at 11am from Meadowmill Sports Centre.

They headed towards Longniddry and the stunning coast road before the brightly coloured throng of bodies about-turned and headed for the finish post – via Cockenzie and Port Seton and also Prestonpans – at Musselburgh Racecourse.

Hundreds of supporters packed the streets to support the runners.

And not even claims by a large number of entrants, supported by their distance-measuring running watches, that the course was a third of a mile longer than it should have been, allegedly due to a misplaced turning point near Gosford House, could put a damper on the occasion.

An estimated £500,000 was raised for charity by runners, in particular for official race charity Cancer Research UK, for whom Gibbons is an ambassador.

The race was won by Bryan Mackie (pictured with trophy) in 1 hour 11 mins and 22 seconds. The first East Lothian athlete ‘home’ was Rab Watson (eighth) of Musselburgh and District Athletic Club.

Afterwards, Mackie said: “I really enjoyed the event. Great course, great weather, great medal – what more do you want! I’m delighted to have set the course record in the first ever Scottish Half Marathon.” And following scores of angry comments on the organiser’s Facbook page by runners who claimed they had missed out on personal best times due to the course allegedly being at least a quarter of a mile longer than the standard distance of 13.1miles, Mackie humorously posted: “I was enjoying myself that much that the extra 400m was a wee Brucey bonus!” GSi Events, which organised the race, responded to the criticism on Facebook by saying that the route had a certificate of course accuracy and had been measured and certified by an IAAF-approved AIMS measurer.

The first woman home was Helen Bonsor in 1 hour 26 minutes and 19 seconds. Charlotte Black and Rhona Anderson completed the top three females, clocking 1 hour 27 mins and 54 seconds and 1 hour 28 minutes and 11 seconds.

Afterwards, she said: “I loved the course and enjoyed the fantastic support along the route.” Among those most colourful runners was Edinburgh’s Hannah Lithgow (pictured). Dressed in full fluorescent orange with a traffic cone hat, she was running for MS Scotland in memory of her father, who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis seven years ago.

While Gemma Gibbons said: “It was an incredible sight at the startline. Congratulations to all those who completed the half marathon. Running 13 miles is a real achievement!” To sign up to next year’s Scottish Half Marathon, see the website www.scottishhalfmarathon.com. Full results and a superb picture gallery can be found in the print editition of this week's East Lothian Courier.

**************************** WHEN you’ve exhausted almost every last ounce of energy in dragging your awkward frame around 13.1miles of East Lothian and your body is screaming at you to stop, and even your eyes have seen enough and your vision is a blur, what do you do when the gates of running heaven – in my case the finish line of the Scottish Half Marathon – are nowhere in sight?

Despite a bout of man flu, I’d run the farthest I’d ever managed in my life and my sports watch was telling me – I’d later learn that many others had similarly frustrating experiences – that I should have completed the distance and had a medal around my neck.

Yet I had barely passed Levenhall roundabout and still had about a third of a mile to go before the official end, at Musselburgh Racecourse, of my first half marathon.

And the bitterest pill to swallow – even worse than those awful-tasting sports gels handed out – was that I’d actually achieved my cherished pre-race goal of running the standard half marathon distance of 13.1miles in under two hours (no sniggering, please). . . yet my official finish time for the 13.4miles to the end was a gutting 2 hours, 2 mins and 15 secs!

In the last couple of months I’d become one third newspaper man, one third road runner and one third mathematician as I’d spend ages calculating, re-calculating and then calculating again exactly what pace I would need to reach my Holy Grail of a one hour fifty-something finish.

Despite a plethora of permutations, if I ran an average of nine minute, nine second miles I would do it. Well, my average pace was faster than that yet I ‘failed’ my goal.

I even forced myself to slow down during the early miles as I was, or so I thought, ‘on schedule’ and didn’t want to push my luck. So what went wrong?

Akin to some Benny Hill sketch where a zig-zagging drunk stumbles into a marathon race and is swept along in the melee, had I really veered so far from ‘the running line’ that clocking 13.4miles on a 13.1mile-course was possible?

People who know about such things – and many have taken to the Scottish Half Marathon’s Facebook page to complain about the course being too long and shattering their hopes of a PB – are adamant that the route was laid out wrongly, yet the organisers say otherwise. What’s not in doubt, though, is that this was, in all other respects, a superbly organised race with fantastic volunteers and marshals, enthusiastic crowds and, of course, the best county in Scotland as its playground.

However, if I do enter next year you can be sure I’ll be training for a 51 per cent marathon and not a half.

Courier Editor, Robbie Scott.