Sheffield Half Marathon

Sheffield Half Marathon 6/4/14 

Matt Taylor      Unofficial time 1:38 

I grew up in Rotherham, a large town close to Sheffield, and so a bit like Di and Alan's trips to Blackpool, Southport and Fleetwood I thought I would combine this race with a visit to my parents.  I entered about 6 months ago although in the days before the race I had flirted with the idea of making the shorter trip to Mow Cop for a race that I am more suited to and one that would have surely gained me plenty of points.  And no I didn't consider running in both races as even if i did a PB in Sheffield it would have given me only 30 minutes to get to Mow Cop.  

Loyalty to my home city meant on Saturday night I set my alarm for 5am.  I had my usual porridge with honey, banana and a pint of water 3 hours before the start.  I had a pleasant journey over Woodhead and arrived in Sheffield at 08:30.  The race started and finished in Tinsley.  Not very picturesque but typical of much of South Yorkshire nowadays.  Before the 1980s this was a thriving area but is now just an industrial wasteland. 

There was a good atmosphere at the start until 08:55 when the first announcement was made that there were cars on the course and that the start would be delayed by 30 minutes.  As I warmed up I decided to position myself further ahead than usual and well ahead of the 1:30 banner.  I had a very good view of the chaotic scenes that were about to unfold.  Despite the delay people were still in good spirits. Nearly all the runners were from local towns or from Sheffield itself.  Then came the second announcement explaining that there was a safety issue and the race could still not start.  Eventually at 09:55 came the final announcement that there was no water on the course and the race was cancelled.  People started booing and as you may have seen on the national news yesterday there was lots of hands on hips and shaking of heads.  This lasted for about 20 seconds before one of the elite runners shouted "come on we're running" and encouraged everyone else to start running.  At this moment there was a lot of confusion as a dozen or so runners began to run around the lead car.  Everyone looked around at each other and then started running.

I took a few seconds before I started running.  At this point 2 police motorcycles sped ahead with sirens on and shouted for people to stop.  About 800m down the road they pulled barriers across the road to stop runners from getting past.  A few runners were stopped by police but most simply ran around the barriers.  Some people tore off their numbers so that they could say they were just going for a run and it just happened to be the same route as the race.  There was another roadblock at about half a mile with police trying to divert runners back towards the start.  However with 5000 angry runners from Barnsley, Rotherham and Sheffield the police thought better of it.  A wise decision.  At 1 mile I looked at my watch, 6:10, and way too fast.  Too much excitement.  I asked a runner next to me if he knew the route just in case they re-opened the roads or tried again to divert runners.  He did and I kept with him for the first 3 miles sticking to the pavement so as not to draw the attention of the police.  Along the route the crowds grew and up the long steady incline which is Ecclesall Road, the posh trendy bar and restaurant area of Sheffield, the atmosphere was incredible.  Hundreds of people lined the route with water, fruit juice, sweets etc.  It became apparent after the race and on watching the news that spectators along the course already knew what had happened at the start and the lack of water via social media and made every effort to get supplies to the roadside. 

I expected the course to be hilly but it was tougher than I had imagined and much tougher than the course profile had suggested.  Not quite Buxton Half but harder than Macc.  13 miles is still a little too far for me and I faded in the last 2 miles clocking almost 8min/miles.  The finish was in the Sheffield Bowl, a grass area for open air concerts and not the athletics track of the superb Don Valley stadium as it had been in previous years.  Disgracefully this is to be demolished after only being built 23 years ago. 

I must admit on watching the news and reading the reports last night I felt sorry for Margaret Lilley, the organiser.  She was clearly distraught at the moment it was announced that the race had to be cancelled. To her credit she faced the cameras at every opportunity to apologise and explain why the race had to be cancelled, a decision made by the race health and safety officer. The blame is clearly with the water suppliers who failed to turn up on the morning of the race.  Perhaps arranging for it to be delivered on race morning was too late. 

In summary a shambles but congratulations to the people of Sheffield for their support. 

Next year Mow Cop I think.  Cant believe Phil and Jarrod scored 60 and 59 points. Gutted! 

Matt Taylor