Neil McCover Memorial Half Marathon

Post date: Oct 8, 2015 1:11:03 PM

By Jennifer Reid

On Sunday 4th October I took part in the 5th Anniversary Race of the Neil McCover Memorial Half Marathon which is organised by Kirkintilloch Olympians. The race is held to commemorate Neil McCover who was a member of Kirkintilloch Olympians who was tragically killed in a cycling accident on 8th October 2010. Neil McCover was a Superintendent in Strathclyde Police and a trophy is presented to the first Police Scotland finisher in the race.

The race starts in Kirkintilloch and the route then heads out into the undulating country roads through Milton of Campsie, Lennoxtown, Torrance and Lenzie. The course is run on open roads, but with the race starting at 9.00am, the traffic wasn’t too bad. The race was well marshalled with Police Scotland support at the main road junctions. Towards the start of the race I found myself running in no man’s land and, with some tight turns, I really appreciated the marshals pointing me in the right direction. After a few miles I began to feel good and managed to catch up and overtake other runners which kept me going. The route was hillier than I had expected. In particular, there was a long incline just after Torrance around mile 10 which zapped the energy from my legs and made the final three miles hard going. I tried to keep up with the runner just ahead of me which pulled me along until around half a mile to go when I managed to up the pace as I headed towards the finish line.

I was ecstatic to finish in a time of 1:31:25, which knocked over 3 minutes off my half marathon time! At the prize giving I received a prize of £15 Sweatshop vouchers to make it a very worthwhile trip to Kirkintilloch!

There were 146 runners competing in this small friendly, club organised half marathon which unfortunately has to compete with the Great Scottish Run half marathon on the same day. However, I would thoroughly recommend doing the Neil McCover Half Marathon, which was very well organised and an enjoyable race. At £19 for Scottish Athletics members late entry, it was good value for money and included a nice technical t-shirt.