Great North Run, My Time At The

First thoughts on the Great North Run when I got there... it's quite busy. If you imagine the entire population of a day at the Reading Festival, lose a sixth of them because they're too drunk on cider to stand, then line all those people up along a motorway... that's your start line. 50,000 people standing around waiting for someone to fire a gun half a mile away so they can start stumbling towards the South Shields.

The starting arrangements actually made it quite hard to do any kind of decent warm up or stretching. Everyone was just too close together. I had a go at doing the best I could but it was a bit half-hearted. And it was hot and sunny too. As a plus point, I didn't feel like I was going to need the toilet anytime soon.

The race started at about ten to eleven (a little late) and 25 minutes later I crossed the line and actually began to run. At this point I felt ok. But it was early days yet.

The first few miles were fine - I stuck to ten minute miles and was enjoying the novelty of running with thousands of other people along motorways. It was annoying to find people dressed as (for example) Spongebob Squarepants that it seemed hard to overtake (they should have a special lane for fancy dress people) and even more annoying when they overtook me... but what can you do?

There were a lot of people (mostly girls from what I remember) who had started walking after less than two miles. They were really pissing me off a bit since they just get in the way and make it quite hard for people to progress. I don't see the point of entering a half marathon if you can't even run a couple of miles. Why would you do that? Why? They should instigate a system like in that Stephen King story The Long Walk where if you drop below a certain pace you get shot. Dead. That would give 'em a kick up the ass. Maybe they'll bring that in next year - I know the organisers are always keen to make the event go more smoothly.

Up to about six miles, everything was going fairly smoothly. I was sticking to the 10 minute miles and not feeling too dead. However, shortly after this, disaster!

My shoelace had come undone.

I had to stop at the side of the road and tie it before I could carry on. Annoyingly this was also about the time my left leg started to hurt. Not in a can't-carry-on way, just in a hi-I'm-your-left-leg-what-are-you-doing-to-me kind of way. This then carried on to be a problem for the rest of the race. However, I don't think it actually slowed me down significantly. It did make me not push things too much though. Maybe this was a good thing.

I kept up the pace to ten miles - at this point I'd been going for 1 hour 45. Ten is the longest I'd ever run prior to the race. But then I just started to feel very bad and the next two miles took me about 25 minutes. Even the spectators by the road who were offering biscuits to runners didn't help. I was tired and I was miserable and I wanted a beer. Somehow I kept on going.

Just before the final mile along the sea-front in South Shields, there's a very steep downhill. It was tempting to go fast down this but I knew that to do so would quite possibly cause me further injury or worse so instead I went dead slow. It seemed to work and then I passed the twelve mile mark and knew the end was in sight. Not quite as close as I hoped, but I was able to speed up a bit whilst heading for the line.

It's a lovely feeling to know that something you want to finish is going to finish soon. It helps you put in that last little bit of effort. With about half a mile to go I spotted one of my friends that I'd started the race with going very slowly. Rather than slowing to encourage them on, I crossed to the other side of the road and tried to secretly overtake so that I'd finish in front. Sadly, she spotted me and started to speed up so that she overtook me just before the end and finished a few seconds ahead. Darn. Serves me right for not being nice, I suppose.

It felt very good to cross that finish line (after 2 hours and 22 minutes). A definite sense that I'd done something that I never thought I would. After all, a year ago I'd never even considered doing any running, let alone a long one.

I haven't yet decided whether I'll enter next year or not.

But for now I need a rest. Which is fine, as I'm off to Prague for a week shortly. Running will resume mid-October.

As a bit of an aside, it was good to see that the main purpose of St John's Ambulance seemed to be to hand out Vaseline to any runners who wanted it. The jury's still out on whether this is to put above your eyes to stop sweat running into them or whether it's to rub on your bits to stop them chaffing...

It's not too late to sponsor me, if you want to and haven't already done so, either for the GNR or for the Run-a-Thon 500. Both are combined on my Justgiving page. Cheers!