I WOULD have agreed with Chris Jones’ letter of August 8 criticising the decision to delay the start of the York 10K race by 30 minutes if we were talking about a few dozen runners who had slept through their alarm.

But thousands of people were still making their way to the start at 9.30am.

Fact is the traffic was, for some reason, significantly worse than in previous years. I set off at 8am and just made it to the start by 9.25am.

Chris is right that the chip timing would have produced accurate times for the latecomers, but you’re hardly going to feel part of the race if you set off up to half an hour after the gun.

I do have a gripe aimed at participants who took no notice of the guidance as to where they should be positioned at the start.

The organisers had put markers at the start (sub 40 mins, sub 50 mins etc) to try and ensure people found themselves running in a group suited to their pace.

I’m normally sub 50 but being a bit rusty chose the sub-55 minute marker. Sadly my race finished at 7km due to injury but during those 7km my route was congested by hundreds of slower runners who clearly should have started behind me.

Peter Robinson, Bridle Walk, Selby.