Curious Llama Does the Glasgow Women's 10k

What event gets women of all ages, shapes, sizes and levels of fitness pounding the pavement for 10km every year in the middle of May? The Glasgow Women's 10K! I have been doing the 10k for years and for years, my time has gotten slower and slower. This is the run's 16th year. I have only been doing it for the last 5 years. Over 12, 000 women participated in the event, cheered on by more than 30, 000 spectators and well-wishers (mostly husbands, boyfriends, fathers and sons). As part of your entry fee, you get a race T-shirt. Every year it is a different design and colour. This year it was pink!

The people who came to Glasgow for Christine's wedding may well remember the Women's 10k. The wedding party arrived the day before the race. So, happy belated anniversary Christine and Joe!!! This year's race was in the same place.
There are now so many participants and supporters, the Glasgow Underground (i.e. the subway) opens early on race day to facilitate transport to the start line. When I got on, there was one tell tale pink T-shirt. By the time we hit the stop closest to the 10K start line, the carriage was full of pink.
Here I am just before heading to my place in the start line. My bumbag contains all I need or might need for the race: ipod, mobile phone, camera, money to get back home, powergel (essentially liquid glucose with caffine), a map of the route, toilet paper and (just in case) blister pads. The bag gets moved to my backside for the race and my windproof jacket (in case it rains) gets tied around my waist. After having done the race at least 5 times, I pretty much know what I need.
Some women are better runners than others, so we are all organised according to our estimated finish time. The professional runners are at the front. Then the rest of us are organised by colour. I was with the green group. You can make out the green balloons that mark the start of the green corrall. We were due to finish between 1 hour and 1 hour 30 minutes. Behind us were the orange group. They were due to finish in over 1 hour 30. Ahead of us were the whites, blues and purples. We all have a timing chip strapped to our ankle, so it doesn't really matter when you start. The time is measured from when you cross the start line to when you cross the finish line. As you can see, some people dress up a bit. I pretty much stuck with the the group of ladies with the christmas decoration wigs.
Here we are, a sea of pink taking to the streets of Glasgow. At each kilometer mark, there is a sign and a bag piper. You can hear as you are approaching to yet another kilometer marking.
A large part of the route goes through parkland. Many of the 'green' ladies don't run the entire course. We run a bit, walk a bit, then run a bit. Here you can see some green ladies and one blue lady who should be in a faster group but decided to stick with her slower green friend. This summarizes the ethos of the race. Most of us are just out there because it is a fun event, with a great atmosphere.
Here is another photo of the park, complete with a highland cow. This is near the Burrell Collection Museum.
Of course, I stopped to take photos, including these cows. This did rather affect my finishing time!
There was also a professional company taking photos of the event. When you enter, they take a note of your email address. So, three days after the race, I was sent a link where I could pay £15 for a copy of a photo. Hmmm. I just selected an image, saved it as an image in my sample photo file and didn't pay a pence. Of course, I do have a large web address across my photo, but who cares!
The winner (a Kenyan 10k professional athlete) finished the race in 31 minutes and 32 seconds. I came in 10, 216th place with a time of 1 hour and 24 minutes (4 minutes slower than last year). Robert keeps on telling me that I should be able to finish a 10k in an hour. My best time was for my first race. I was younger, weighed less, trained hard and still finished in 1 hour and 10 minutes. I am trying to encourage him to enter the men's 10k so he can walk the walk, rather than talk the talk. His reason for not entering: I will be in Canada. The slowest finisher was 2 hours and 10 minutes. The last woman to finish at 59 minutes and 59 seconds was in 8149th place.

I'm looking forward to next year...maybe this time I will actually train for the event (however, I do have to admit that 10 weeks of training only makes me 14 minutes faster!). That's 1.4 minutes per week of training...hmmm... I wonder if it is worth it? You still get a medal regardless of your finishing time.