Great North Run

Such an amazing day but totally brutal conditions. Extremely hot particularly in the start pens (almost an hour to cross the start line under constant sunshine was torture) and for the first 10k it never laid off. But the atmosphere was everything I imagined after watching it all those years on the telly and the organisation for the most part was tip-top. If you are looking for a PB I wou;dn't expect it - kept getting funnelled through bottlenecks at various points along the route. Also a lot of tourist runners in the wrong pen, blocking off the road while walking or stopping for pictures in the middle of the road causing accidents and swerves made it almost impossible to get up to regular pace. Main downside for me was the 5 hours it took to get back to the hotel due to the floods from the biblical storms that moved in. That was just horrendous; a month of rain in 90 minutes that caused the Metro to close entirely along with the roads and ferry - 60k runners stranded! Took 5 hours to get back from South Shields to Gateshead because of it. Would I do it again? Probably because of the atmosphere and the generosity of the locals but I won't be expecting this to be an A race for me again. So glad to have done it and ticked it off my bucket list and honoured to have run in Mo Farah's last ever race made the whole thing worth the pain.

Take this a fun run. An amazing experience. 56,000 odd competitors. The locals are totally amazing, coming out of there homes to cheer everyone along, inc giving oranges and jelly. If you think you are going to finish on your predicted time its one BIG NO! I'd advise you to get to the very front of your pen if you want anything near your training time. It took 40 minutes to get to the start line. At mile six I thought to myself that I was going to give up trying to get to speed, there were people clearly in the wrong pens who were walking a mile two! I found myself jumping up and down the high kerbs to get past slower runners. The last maybe two miles are down hill, from a reasonably flatish route. We must have walked a good mile at the end back to the car. I found a local sports centre for a shower. I passed FOUR people having their hearts pumped.

Marred by public transport delays and mess. First up, I stayed central to the race and set off at 9:30, and didn’t get back until about 5pm. That’s just too long on my feet! Following the directions given, even though I was starting at the back, I had to get to my pace from the front. At 10:30 I gave up and jumped a barrier into the start, then faster an hour of walking I had a 45 minute wait in the sun to even start, by which time my back was spasming. I ran really strongly and was very tired at the end, after which I faced 30 minutes walk to the ferry and 90 minutes in a queue with no shelter or loos. By this time I could barely stand and had to sit. After crossing the Tyne we finally grabbed a cab back into town! I also take issue with the terrible use of plastic, single use bottles were strewn everywhere, all over the road. The Clif desk also created terrible mess, plastic and bloks were littered all over the road, and with the discarded water, it formed a sticky mass on my shoes. Gross, and probably hard to clean up. People didn’t even try not to litter and also didn’t pull to the side to walk, so I bumped into their backs. I also counted four ambulances blue-lighting people off the roads which added to the really chaotic feel. Running over tha Tyne bridge WAS amazing and the locals are fantastic supporters, it is a great race. But the public transport queues absolutely take the pee and the littering looked awful. Probably a great race if you're willing and able to stay on your feet for a minimum of 7 hours or so, and are fairly aroused by queueing. I have some great memories but will not be entering again, it’s just too messy, wasteful, chaotic and stressful with all that queuing. Great medal and t shirt, above average goody bag too.