St Giles Burn set for new course layout (4/10/24)

St Giles is gearing up for its annual hill climb later this month, which is set to feature a new course layout. Video by Aaron Smith (4/10/24)

Transcript

00:00So after 10 years of the Balfour Burn, we took the decision to move the event over here to Arthur

00:05and Elizabeth Streets, a little bit more central, but the main reason is that we've got this lovely

00:10parkland here at St George's Square where we can have some family activities. The Balfour Street

00:14course was 400 metres with a 25% incline because half of the run was actually along the flat

00:20essentially, whereas here again it's a 400 metre course with a 40 metre climb and it's only a 10%

00:26incline, so you're climbing the whole time. So it's the same kind of workout, if anything it's

00:30a little bit easier for the little people who want to come up the hill, but we think it's still

00:34enough of a challenge to excite the elite runners. At this stage we're on track to have about the

00:39same amount of entrants as last year, which is just shy of 500 and on the day we normally end

00:43up having about 800 people lining the course because a lot of people run up, some people walk,

00:48some people come with their families who just want to watch, so we're really looking forward

00:52to it being another bumper event. I've been used to doing it on Balfour Street for about

00:58oh nearly a decade, so it's you know quite a while and just I'm just excited to see what the new

01:06course is about and just to see how many people turn up again because every year we get a lot of

01:13people even if like it's they haven't signed up online you can just come and sign up here. Keep

01:20coming back because it's just I love St Giles, I've been at St Giles since I was four weeks old

01:29so you know 19 years at St Giles really builds a connection and I just love the fundraising aspect

01:36as well.