Title: A few issues

This 10k was part of my running club's grand prix events - a friendly in club competition staged over eight races of various lengths and various terrains.  The Havering 90 Joggers turned out en masse  to run.  I didn't have a problem with the course - a1600 metre  part lap followed by four laps and a run uphill to the finish. I didn't have a problem with the marshals - very encouraging and supportive. I did have a problem with the confusion over the start time - it was stated as ten o clock on the email but several of our club were told on arrival it started at half ten.  I did have a problem with the confusion over where the start line actually was - told completely incorrectly by one marshal, correctly directed by another runner.  But both of these are little niggles compared to the taking away of the final run in cones and the hasty packing up of the baggage drop area whilst there were still runners out on the course!  Not all of us are Usain Bolt and so take longer to complete  a 10k than other more speedy competitors but we all deserve the same run in experience at the finish.  Every single runner deserves to be cheered on to the finishing line regardless of how long it takes them to get there.  If it hadn't been for our club standing at the finishing line to cheer the last runner home, the poor woman would have had no idea where she was heading or where the finishing line was - that is outrageous and really shame on you!

Forget the rubbish t-shirt and the tinny medal - focus on the race experience itself.  If that was my first experience of a supposedly well organised 10k, I would have been so disappointed.  A real shame as the course itself was good, Gunnersbury park is a great venue and the marshals were lovely - all let down by packing up early and leaving the last runners home with the feeling that they were holding everything up and being a nuisance by being slower than the majority.  This is NOT the  experience of running to promote, it shouldn't be anyone's experience of running a 10k event.