Great Scottish Run 2026: Junior runners kick off Scotland's biggest running event in Glasgow
The festival is taking place across two days, Saturday 3 October and Sunday 4 October, with around 2,000 younger participants involved in today’s youth running events.
Scotland’s biggest running event returned to Glasgow today (3 October) with the junior runners kicking off the AJ Bell Great Scottish Run 2026.
The festival is taking place across two days, Saturday 3 October and Sunday 4 October, with around 2,000 younger participants involved in today’s youth running events.
The Junior run - compromising of children aged between 9 and 15 - took part in the 2.5km challenge at 9am, with two stars from the TV show Gladiators, Athena and Hammer, ringing the starting bell.
The Junior and Mini run began and ended in Glasgow Green, with runners speeding past the People’s Palace and the Doulton Fountain, using the Glasgow Green park paths before heading onto Greendyke Street.
The mascot dash followed the Juniors at 10:15, then it was the toddler dash (70m) at 10:25.
Lastly the minis - meaning children aged three to eight - took on a 1.5km dash from 11:20, with the last group setting off at 12:40.
Sunday will see thousands of runners take to the streets of Glasgow for the 10k and the half-marathon, with the action kicking off from 8.26am.
Olympian Eilish McColgan and charity fundraiser Craig Ferguson will be setting runners on their way, with three colour co-ordinated waves of runners heading off for the 10k between 08:30 and 09:03.
The half marathon (13.1 miles) follows later. It will feature six waves of participants with the elite runners setting the pace at 10:10. The final wave will take off at 12:13.
Both the 10K and half marathon start on St Vincent Street in the city centre and conclude on Glasgow Green.
The Great Scottish run dates back to 1979 when the first Glasgow Marathon was held, with fewer than 200 runners taking part in the first two events combined due to tough qualification standards.
It changed its name to the Scottish People's Marathon in 1981 with over 7,000 runners taking place but, diminishing interest meant that it became a half-marathon event in 1988 before being rebranded as the Great Scottish Run in 1989.
Since then it’s been run over a variety of distances but in recent years it’s seen a full weekend of races take place on the streets in and around Glasgow, with junior races taking place on the Saturday and a 10K and a half marathon run on the Sunday.
It’s now the largest mass-participation sporting event in Scotland, with round 30,000 competitors taking part each year.
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