A huge congratulations to everyone who ran the Birmingham Half Marathon yesterday writes running blogger Hannah Webster.

It was a great day and really brought thousands of people together as they pounded the streets of Brum.

I came in at two hours 16 minutes, which I’m pretty happy with given my lethargy lately.

But it’s nothing compared to my boyfriend Paul, who improved his personal best by 15 minutes to record a time of one hour 49 minutes.

Other friends managed one hour 48 minutes, and a ridiculously good one hour 34, which is superhuman from my point of view.

• See more pictures of the Birmingham Half Marathon here

The only real problem with the day was an organisational issue with the finishing line.

As I ran down the finishing straight, which was mercifully downhill, waving and smiling for the photographers, I was delirious to know I would be finishing the race imminently.

I remembered how wonderful it feels to cross the finish line and allow myself to finally stop running.

But, when I got there, it was so packed full of runners that I had to stop short of the line and wait for five minutes, just to cross it.

And as soon as I stopped the queue mounted up behind me – suddenly I was wedged in like a sardine.

This obviously meant that I couldn’t warm down and my legs seized up as I watched the clock tick away the minutes that I had just worked so hard to save, before I could cross the finish line and record my time.

I stopped my watch when I stopped, but my official time looks like I am four and a half minutes slower.

Now, I know this doesn’t matter too much from a personal achievement point of view, but the EDF Half Marathon is one of the more expensive races to enter and part of that money goes into recording your time properly.

I would have thought that a lot of runners are reasonably irritated by having to wait at the finish line, and knowing their official times will be five minutes out.

I have run the previous two races, and neither ran into this problem, so I can only think the organisers just could not deal with the number of people entering the race this year.

It’s a rather rubbish excuse though – the number was anticipated and encouraged by organisers, so it’s difficult to understand what went so wrong.

All the same, it was still fantastic with a great atmosphere and lovely supporters and spectators.

The course was largely flat compared to what I am used to, apart from the final few miles where I was not impressed to turn a corner and find a virtually vertical hill left to climb having already run 11 miles.

But then again, that’s all part of the fun.

The winner was Edwin Kipyego, who came in at one hour, three minutes and 50 seconds, while the first woman, Susan Elizabeth Partridge, came in at one hour, 13 minutes and 55 seconds.

Congratulations again to everyone who ran it – see you all again next year!

• You can find the full race results here (PDF)