A pleasant day weather wise greeted us this morning if a little chilly. Not that would have worried the 15,000 odd participants of this 3rd running of the half marathon in Britain’s second City.
I stood at the 1 mile mark in Digbeth to capture a few images and despite the runners taking a slight short cut round the right hand turn, in and out of traffic cones and central reservations, no one tripped and no incidents. Phew, that was a relief. I think the marshal at that point didn’t fancy trying to re-direct nearly 15,000 runners! Can’t say I blamed him.
Back up to Broad Street to see if I could get more images and after fighting through the crowds managed to get a clear spot. Unfortunately missed the winners but managed to get a few including a couple of MMAC members.
John Keegan; MMAC
Michael Elwell; Cobra RC & MMAC
As more and more runners finished, the congestion around the area of the Symphony Hall in Broad Street got quite unbearable and I understand from later radio reports that runners were queuing up to cross the finish line… not good.
A full set of Results can be downloaded from this link… Birmingham Half Marathon 2010 – Results
Midland Masters Athletic Club 
Hi tom;
yep, queuing to cross finish line (took me between 4-5 minutes).
organisation was an absolute joke
but didn’t let it spoil a good day & my 1st serious run since London in 2003!
Posted by phil innamorati | October 26, 2010, 10:47 amWell done for finishing, shame about the bottleneck. A lot of the runners who had finished were trying to get up Broad Street towards Five Ways along the narrow bit by the Symphony Hall. Together with spectators (like me) trying to get to Centenary Square the opposite way, this was after 2¼ hours, caused total gridlock. Why they were not on the way to a baggage area, I don’t know, but it was chaos.
Also, at 1 mile, a marshal allowed the runners to deviate through cones, over a reservation for a short cut to the right hand turn. It only needed 1 runner to do it and everyone followed. More cones and a pro-active marshal were needed.
But overall it seemed to be a cracking event……..
Posted by Tom Morris | October 26, 2010, 1:28 pm