Great North Run - out of 10 you're a 13.1

 So if you know me I have been having an issue with my ankle now for a year and a half. This was caused by sinus tarsi. Last November I also managed to trip over my own front door, which made my ankle blow up and I injured my peroneal tendon. D'oh. So this year has been mostly one of rehab and physio visits. In May, I started work as a swimming teacher which is very active and involves a lot of walking, and I think that has really contributed towards the rehab process. I hesitate to say healing as I'm sure it's still there, I live in hope I'll be able to wear nice shoes again one day (shoes that have any kind of arch support seem to be trainers or very solid sandals...). Due to this, I had done very little training for the Great North Run, for a long while I was considering just deferring to next year. However, we'd booked the tickets, I'd done a four hour walk that was zero fun in training (!), so off we went to Newcastle.

Just a note that there is going to be a bit of moaning here about the transport to and from the event. We had to leave just after 8 to catch a bus to Newcastle, as they only run every hour from where we were staying in Blyth. Yes, we probably could have caught the 9:20 bus, but that might have been cancelled/full, and wasn't worth the risk. Thankfully, the bus we caught ran on time and took us nicely all the way to Haymarket where the start was. The toilet situation wasn't great either. Big queues on Town Moor, and then zero toilet options once we were on our way to the start/in the pens. There were a lot of people using the bushes, which isn't good. There was a lot of walking to the start - I looked at my watch and by the time I had threaded my way to the start I had already done 6000 steps! There were some amazing outfits though - I saw two people dressed as ovaries and a couple of women with breasts on their backs were on the TV - complete with squeaking nipples 😂. We saw the Red Arrows speeding over which was amazing and weirdly emotional, not helped by some poor bloke on the TV who had just lost his parent recently...

We had to walk past the start, then about another couple of km to the end of the queues waiting to start, then back to the start again...

So after leaving Stuart at 10:45, I finally started the Great North Run at 12:34. It was very busy to start with, I'd chosen the "left" side, where you go under the bridge, which started off a whole round of "oggy oggy oggy"... There was even someone with a sign saying "You're (kinda) nearly there"! within the first km! This was the first lie of the run... It was super busy, and I was trying my best to do my slow run/walk on the left as instructed, but yet I still had people barging past me or running on the pavement next to me to get past, it was pretty annoying! We went over the Tyne Bridge, which was epic, even if it does look like it needs a bit of paint closer up. Then we were running through Gateshead. Pretty soon I had to "go", as it had been several hours of waiting to start. There was a queue at the first row of portaloos I went past, so I decided to keep going to the next one. Unfortunately at the next one, there was only one loo available so I had to wait around 12 minutes, which really ate into my run time! Annoyingly probably about another 10 minutes down the road was a whole row of portaloos with no queue! At least stopping meant the road cleared a bit and it wasn't so busy on the road. At the aid station I had a bottle of water thrust into my hand, like I had to take it! The crowds were epic, everyone was offering me sweets, to the point where I had a few too many jelly babies and felt a bit sick! There was a bridge that said "Cheer if you're having fun" and I realised, I was actually having fun for a change!

Probably at about mile 7 - half way - the wheels started to come off. We were "running" down a dual carriageway with very little support (apart from the odd driver honking their horn on the other side of the road). I got out the bottle of coke I'd placed in my running vest for this situation, which was definitely a good idea. We went past this drag act who looked fabulous and as I shuffled past them I said "you're almost as tall as me" which they replied "I love that!". I have no idea why I said that to them!

Every day I'm shuffling - just after the half way point, you can see the bottle of coke in one of my pockets...

I was overtaking and being overtaken by a guy called David, who had a "in memory of" T-shirt on, he asked me how I was doing at one point and I said "feeling the chafe". I think that put him off chatting to me again (!), sorry David. I hadn't put any lube on my thighs - error on my part, given I was wearing shorts. I wanted to go ask the St Johns Ambulance people if they had any Vaseline, but was worried if I stopped I would never finish the race. So I kept on going. The final gradual climb was long and painful. I was mostly walking by this stage, as my legs were protesting. I had someone come up to me and ask if I wanted to chat. I didn't really, but I was polite... It had started to rain and there were some massive sprinklers on the road, ones that you couldn't avoid, so while we were trying to deal with rain from above I was also trying to go to the furthest side away from the sprinklers! I missed the free beer near the end, but I wouldn't have wanted a can of lager anyway - yuk! Finally the top of the hill came into view, I asked someone if that was actually the top or if it was a false summit, thankfully it was the top and then there was an interesting downhill and you could see the sea! Yay! The final mile was a painful affair but I was happy I was nearly there and it was flat! Everything was sore, especially my hip for some reason. We were directed off the road on to the grass and there was the finish line! I'd finished in under 4 hours!

Absolutely finished

I would include here a massive moan about how terrible it was to try and get home through the crowds, or how my poor body completely crashed post-event and I ended up passing out trying to exit the train at Newcastle Central, but instead I will leave with a thank you to Stuart for his support, sorry but I'm sure I'll be doing another half marathon again, but next time with a bit more training! Also a thank you to my mother in law Lillian for putting us up as always. Plus thank you to Coach T for her support despite the lack of training...