Dunfermline Press | Sport | City on its marks for big race

Published: Thursday, 8th May, 2008 12:45

City on its marks for big race

By Sports editor Simon Harris

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PRIDE, loyalty, commitment and smiles. This weekend sees the Run Dunfermline Festival hit the city’s streets with Sunday’s Dunfermline City Half Marathon already on course for a record entry.

The big race, which gets under way at 11am in the city’s Pittencrieff Park, has once again been awarded the Scottish national half marathon championships but a packed programme across the whole weekend gives all the family a chance to take part.

Run Dunfermline 2008 gets off the starting blocks tomorrow (Friday) when hundreds of West Fife youngsters take part in the primary schools cross-country relay on the same stretches that will be used by the country’s top athletes just 48 hours later.

There’s a 3km junior run and the Pittencrieff Park 5K on Saturday before the half marathon on the Sunday.

Elite runners will battle it out at the sharp end of Scottish running to see who will be crowned national half marathon champion but within the expected 1000-strong field there will be hundreds of runners trying to meet the challenge of running a tad more than 13 miles.

For the first time this year there will be the Dunfermline Press Half Marathon Team Relay, giving families, friends and colleagues the chance to share the distance and the spirit of being involved in such a feel-good challenge.

Teams of four can run the half marathon as a relay effort – meaning each team member has to run just slightly more than three miles. Alternatively, two team members can do just six miles each.

And 15 minutes after the main race starts, there’ll once again be the amazingly popular 1km ‘Fun Run’ which gives mums, dads, grannies, grandads, aunts, uncles and the kids the chance to get involved.

Looking ahead to this year’s festival, race director John Martindale told Press Sport, “The Dunfermline City Half Marathon and Run Dunfermline Festival is part of the community now and West Fifers are very proud of it.

“I’ve been speaking this week to the volunteers, the race marshalls, all the people who really make the event what it is and they’re all up for it once again.

“There’s girl guides turning up, the rugby club are turning out in force and the runners here have the same sort of attitude.

“It’s not something we’ve noticed when we’ve organised races over in Edinburgh.

“There’s not that loyalty to the race. It’s absolutely superb. It’s the genuine article and that kind of feedback makes all the hard work worthwhile.”

Sunday will probably see the biggest ever field for the half marathon, which is sponsored by city firm maloco + associates, since Martindale restored it to Dunfermline’s sporting calendar in 2002.

“We feel very privileged that, once again, we’ve been chosen for the national half marathon championships and with all the elite athletes there, it’s a serious business at the sharp end,” he acknowledged.

“But five minutes later, you can be roaring laughing and have tears in your eyes at the same time watching everyone jumping up and down and joining in the 1km fun run circuit together. It’s such a contrast.

“The primary schools relays on the Friday has also been a terrific success with all the gear in place for the kids and that has a different atmosphere again.”

The Dunfermline city half marathon is part of an east coast series organised by Martindale’s business Interloq, which started in Edinburgh in mid-March and will finish with the Dundee half marathon next month.

Anyone who ran in the Edinburgh half marathon completing Sunday’s race will get a limited edition medal reflecting the feat.

Online entries via ‘Q-buster’ (www.q-buster.co.uk) will close at midnight tonight (Thursday) but entries will be accepted on the day from all runners for the various races staged over the weekend with the junior 3K starting at 1pm on Saturday and the Pittencrieff Park 5K an hour later.

Race packs can be downloaded from www.dunfermline-half.co.uk.

Martindale will hold a briefing session with race marshalls tonight while there’s been a leaflet drop to every household on the route in Dunfermline’s eastern expansion giving details about road closures and the event itself.

And as well as the running there will once again be a health expo in the Glen Pavilion over Saturday and Sunday featuring exhibits on running gear and healthy living. The expo opens at 12pm on Saturday.

Dunfermline & West Fife Sports Council will again stage it annual cross-country and relay athletics festival in Pittencrieff Park on Friday starting at 10am as part of the Run Dunfermline weekend.

Seventeen West Fife primary schools have entered nearly 350 pupils in the popular event.

Pitreavie Athletics Club will provide the officials together with Sport Tayside and Fife, while the Fife Active Schools team will bring along some high school pupils to assist on the day.

Aimed at giving children the opportunity to experience a taste of a big time athletics event using part of the City Half Marathon course, they will be paced round the course by young talented local athletes Luke Kelly and Euan Dyer, from Pitreavie AAC.

The relay will also mark the launch of Junior Jog Scotland in Fife. Due to the success of the adult jogscotland programme the junior programme was piloted and launched in 2007.

The ethos of the junior programme is to encourage kids to adopt a healthy and more active lifestyle through fun and easy jogging games.

A NUMBER of the city’s roads will be closed on Sunday from the start of the race at 11am until around 1.30pm.

The race route is: Bridge Street, Kirkgate, Maygate, Canmore Street, Park Avenue, West Drive, Public Park, Woodmill Road, Linburn Road, Greenshanks Drive, Dunlin Drive, Halbeath Road, Couston Street, Transy Place, Public Park, West Drive, Park Avenue, Canmore Street, Abbot Street, Maygate, Kirkgate, Bridge Street, Pittencrieff Park.

Other road restrictions may be applied and drivers have been urged to show patience and awareness of the safety of runners. Police officers and race stewards will be dotted around the two-lap course.

Organisers have urged the public to turn out in force to support the event and the runners but have asked drivers to park well away from the route itself.

There will be no parking at Pittencrieff Park for runners or visitors on race day.

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