SWLSrun – by Ava Whyte and Lauren Beavis
An imposter dressed as a marshal sent 10K runners the wrong way during a race hundreds of meters before the finish line.
Organisers have hit out at the ‘bizarre and malicious’ incident – after an unknown person ‘imitating’ an official caused chaos.
Around 20 to 30 participants in Acorn Trails’ race through the Castlemilk Woodlands were “purposefully” misdirected off the set route – just hundreds of metres from the finish line.
Alex Osborne, one of the directors of the race in Glasgow on Sunday, said: “One of our regular runners knew the park well and he knew what the route should be.
“He noticed an arrow was pointing to the left of where it should have been.
“Having gone down where the arrow was pointing he realised there were no further markings after that and he knows we don’t leave the course unmarked.
“When he got to the finish line he told the other race director that someone had moved one of the arrows.
“I ran up to the location and found it had been moved from straight forward to left. There were a few reports of the person being an older female dog walker.
“One person said he was pointed by a female giving directions. So not only did they move the arrow but they also stood there for a while pointing people in the wrong direction.
“It’s bizarre, they imitated a marshal.”
Runners were taking part in a 10k trail race through the woodlands when the incident reportedly occurred.
Alex and his partner Michelle, who are both race directors at Acorn Trails, are now working to understand how many participants were impacted.
He also raised concerns over potential safety issues that could have arisen from such actions but highlighted the difficulty in preventing a repeat incident in the future.
Alex added: “I’m still unpicking it at the moment to see how many people were actually affected.
“We went back onto the course after the race finished to take down all the signs and there was a large arrow sign missing around the location where people were sent the wrong way.
“We thought it must have been tossed into a hedge and we rummaged around and found it buried in the woods at the side of the trail.
“On the running app, we can see people were sent all over the park including down towards the bridge and the river.
“They were nowhere near the finish line and could have become lost in the park because not everyone is necessarily local and knows their way around it.
“If anyone was to have a fall or needed medical attention they weren’t near anything. It’s bizarre because if you don’t like runners in the park, all you’ve done is keep them in the park.
“When you put the course markings out you can never account for someone being so malicious.
“We could appoint a marshal at every twist and turn instead of an arrow but that’s not practical to get that amount of volunteers to take part.”
Acorn Trails is now offering those impacted by the reported incident a discount for their next event at Linn Park on March 16.
