I would have expected final checks to have been done a little back from the runway edge and the wait to be not on the runway itself but at a holding point.
I've been at a holding point for a runway at Manchester that was part down the main runway (as I was in a GA aircraft) and the big birds quite happily landing on the main runway way before where I was.
Edited to ask, were you actually on the 'large' runway holding for what you thought was the active but narrower runway? If a runway is inactive it will be clearly marked (X) visible from the air.