Race Report by Stuart Jones

Take a look at the results online here. These are courtesy of the timing company.

These are NOT the official results. Those should be on the Run For All website, but there they still show as ‘pending’.

Try inputting that ‘race number’ (31974) into the online results search, and, unsurprisingly, it produces no result.

Put my race number in – 31323 – and you get my finish time of 54:34 / 52:31.

The lad with the biro number on a piece of torn-out-of-a-jotter lined paper was not an exception, not a ‘ghost runner’ and not a fraud. Something went wrong at the number collection desk, and quite a few of the runners were wearing these handwritten ‘race numbers’ instead of the ubiquitous Run for All chip-timer.

If you take a look at the list of first 25 finishers you’ll see that something odd was going on quite early. The bib numbers are either below 1504 or over 31303, with no-one in-between.

I picked up my number an hour before the scheduled start. It was all very swift and very IT; instead of being allocated a number (and waste occurring from each DNS) in advance I was simply issued with the next number on the pile, and it was scanned with an iPad app. Clever, I thought.

But there were very few numbers left to issue and the queue behind me for number collection, and entry on the day, was growing. At some point these high number ‘bibs’ must have run out and a decision must have been made to scrawl consecutive numbers on scraps of paper and to issue them.

I ran the flat course, I saw the many iconic sights of Middlesbrough (bottle of notes, Institute of Modern Art, Transporter Bridge, the Vulcan wall, Temenos, the Riverside Stadium, Albert Park), I got the standard goody bag and medal, I got a time by both gun and chip. But I cannot say what position I finished in because the published results only show those wearing a chip timer. There was no stopwatch and clipboard back-up in place, and how would officials be able to read the biro-scrawled numbers anyway?

One hopes that the first to cross the line (gun time first) got the prize – I haven’t heard that the race has been declared null and void, but maybe it should be?

First showing on the chip timings, so quite possibly first male, but then again quite possibly not first male at all: Joseph Wilson of North East Project in a chip-timed time of 30:57.

First female recorded by chip-timing as crossing the finish line: Jennifer Berry of Wallsend Harriers in 37:48 (chip time, 37:56 gun time).

I don’t think there were over 31,000 athletes taking part; there are 70 pages of chip-timed results at 25 per page, so we know at least 1,727 finished. The actual number will remain a mystery unless and until Run For All makes a public statement.

Striders Results: