Glasgow welcomes a field of some 30,000 runners for a festival of running this weekend with an elite race to savour in the 2017 Bank of Scotland Great Scottish Run.
The 10k and half marathon route takes runners through some of Glasgow’s best-known streets, starting at George Square in the heart of Glasgow before they enter Glasgow Green and reach the tree-lined finish straight in the shadow of Nelson’s Monument, with the action captured live on BBC Two Scotland.
Photo: Great Run
The half marathon (starting at 11.30am) promises to be a specator treat with big names in both the men’s and women’s elite races. In the men’s race Scotland’s Callum Hawkins (pictured left) returns to defend the title he won last year. Hawkins has gone from strength to strength since that win breaking the Scottish half marathon record (and going second only to Mo Farah on the all-time British list in the process) in Febrary this year when running a time of 60:00 in Japan. And that performance was followed up by a superb fourth-place finish in the marathon at the IAAF World Championships in London this summer.
Joining Hawkins is another star Scot, Andrew Butchard, an Olympic and World Championship 10k finalist and tipped by a certain Mo Farah as the man to inspire the next generation of British 10k athletes. Butchart makes his debut in the longer event as he launches his winter season of training and it will be fascinating to see how the 25-year-old from Dunblane gets on over the 13.1 mile course on the streets of Glasgow.
Also entered in the men’s race is a raft of Scottish talent who will be competing in the Half Marathon Champs which takes place as part of the Great Scottish Run and which is the final event of the scottishathletics Road Race Grand Prix series. Tewolde Mengisteab, Kristian Jones, Kenny Wilson, Michael Christoforou, Derek Rae, Alastair Hay, Neil Renault, Robert Gilroy, Kerry-Liam Wilson, Michael Crawley and Lachlan Oates are all due to compete.
In the women’s race another British Olympian, Jo Pavey, is set to feature at the sharp end of the race. Pavey, a European silver medallist has a soft spot for Glasgow having won the second of her two Commonwealth medals when she took bronze in the women’s 5000m in 2014. She also finished fourth in this race in 2015 and after withdrawing from this summer’s World Championships has made success on the roads the focus of her 2017 season.
The women’s race likewise incorporates the Scottish Half Marathon Championships as the final part of the scottishathletics Road Race Grand Prix. Shettleston’s Fionnuala Ross – who won the 10k event in Stirling recently with a time of 33.57 – will start as the favourite with other names to look out for including Jennifer Elvin, Gemma Rankin, Katie White, Katie Jones and Fanni Gyurko.
A great day of action awaits as Butchart and Co join some 30,000 runners in the largest running event in the country. The half marathon starts at 11.30am and is preceded by plenty of other races starting with the Bank of Scotland Great Scottish Run elite wheelchair race (10K) at just after 9.30am.
There’s free viewing on the course for spectators: see this guide for details of the half marathon route, as well as a full timetable of events (also below) throughout the morning as you scroll down the page.
Admission free to all spectators!
Timetable* of main events (provisional)
09:38 Bank of Scotland Great Scottish Run elite wheelchair race (10k)
09:45 Bank of Scotland Great Scottish Run 10k start (fast paced runners && white wave)
11:15 Half-marathon warm-up starts
11:30 Bank of Scotland Great Scottish Run half-marathon start (elite athletes, fast paced runners & white wave)
12:55 Elite presentations at Glasgow Green
*NB. Timetable is provisional and times are subject to change.