It’s taken me a few days to recover and organise my thoughts on Sunday’s Great North Run… it was an absolutely incredible experience and I feel so lucky to have been able to take part in it. I really wasn’t prepared for just how many people would be there - either running themselves or lining the streets offering encouragement, jelly babies, or ice lollies! I’ve never experienced anything like it, it was absolutely awesome.
According to a post-race email, Sunday’s was the hottest Great North Run ever. The sun was out from early on and shining down on us fiercely until about 1pm. We were in our corals on the central motorway from around 10:30 and while Mo Farah and the other elite men started running at 11:00, it was just past 11:30 before I crossed the start line.
It was hard not to get carried away at the start, the first two miles were downhill and I had a lot of nervous energy - the BBC coverage actually caught me checking my watch and deliberately slowing down just after I’d begun running! Those couple of miles I went a little quick, but I settled into my race pace by the third mile. Already my watch was slightly out of sync, showing that I’d travelled further than the mile markers on the course would suggest - I was doing a lot of bobbing and weaving trying to pass slower runners or walkers - not something I’d ever experienced before. This meant the pace on my watch was quicker than my ‘real’ pace - though I didn’t realise this at the time. I was aiming to average under 9 minutes and 7 seconds per mile, which would see me across the line in under 2 hours.
Around mile 4 - and the start of the first real hill - it started to feel like hard work, not ideal as I was only a quarter of the way there! I had an energy gel, as it was about the 30min mark, some water, and took an ice pop offered by somebody in the crowd which was fantastic for cooling down a little bit. I drank half the water, then threw the other half over my head, something I repeated at most of the water stations along the course. Even with this, mile 4 was a bit slow at 9:26 pace (9:13 by my watch) and I knew I needed to speed it up a little bit. Mile 5 was similarly tough (9:23 / 9:17 pace), but signalled the end of that uphill section and for miles 6, 7, and 8 I managed to speed up and get my pace closer to 9:00 minutes.
The 10th mile was another rough section of the race for me. It was an undulating road section and I was getting really tired and very hot. I could feel my heart rate creeping up and I recorded the slowest mile of the race at 9:36 (9:25 on my watch). I think a lot of the runners around me at that point were also tiring as I was struggling to run at ‘my’ pace, dodging around folks more than ever. This was the hardest part of the race for me and it would’ve been so easy to slow down, or walk for a while, and give up on my goal of finishing in under two hours. I remember thinking to myself that that night I’d lie in bed and I’d either have achieved it or not, and how I felt was up to me in that moment. I thought of everybody who’d sponsored me, everybody I’d shared my goal with, and decided there was no way I was giving up. I’d trained for this for far too long, been through too much to let it slip.
After mile 10, I could start to think about the end. Even though it was a slight uphill, I managed to speed up again as we got closer to South Shields. The crowds were incredibly here, I think they could sense that we all needed as much help as possible. In the run up, I’d been thinking about the 13.1 miles as a 10 mile run, like I’d done in practice, with a 5k ‘park run’ on the end. I think that helped, as I knew I was only at-most half an hour from the end if I kept to my pace. Throughout the race I’d been alternating between turning my music right up and turning it right down and soaking in the atmosphere. I remember in this section visiting the side of the track quite often to take high-fives from children lining the road and thanking them for their support. I very gratefully took another ice pop here too! I actually had to moderate my pace here, to keep something in the tank for the last few miles.
Mile 11-12 was the last big climb and it really hurt but this section was entirely within South Shields and the support was getting louder and louder. I sped up slightly again whilst trying not to get carried away. At the very end of mile 12 we could see the sea and hit a steep downhill down to the last corner and the final mile.
The final mile was along the coast road - I turned my music off entirely here and gave it everything I had, dropping my split time to 8 minutes at 14 seconds for that last section. I’ve seen a couple of clips where I’ve been in the background of GoPro footage and it’s not pretty, but by this point the only thing I cared about was getting across that finish line. I was soaked through with water from the drinks stations or showers and sweat in roughly equal measure and I was running on empty.
When I eventually crossed the finish line, in 1:58:45, I was so incredibly happy - and tired! Despite having trained a lot over the last 18 months, I wasn’t ready for the heat on the day or just ‘how long’ 13.1 miles was going to feel. I couldn’t have kept going without the support of the crowds who’d turned out to cheer us all on - or the support of my family, friends, colleagues, or everyone I run with at Northwich Running Club throughout this year. Really, though, my finishing time is entirely unimportant. What really matters is that together we’ve raised a fantastic amount of money for the NICU at Leighton Hospital, and it’s of that which I’m most proud. Thank you all so very, very much.
