Great North Run 2009

For those of you who don't want to read about the whole experience I've put headings.

THE BUILD-UP

What a weekend. It started on Friday night when Graham and I went up to Lanark to take a table for my daughter. We had decided to go straight from there to Newcastle on Saturday afternoon.
So we set off intending to do a bit of sight seeing of Hadrian's wall on the way. However, I had misjudged just how long it would take to get down to Carlisle and across on the A69, so by the time we saw the turn off for Hadrian's wall, we decided not to bother - afterall it's not going anywhere and there'll be other times for sight seeing.
Of all the times to let us down, the satnav decided it needed to be updated and flatly refused to work. We tried beating it with a stick a la John Cleese, but that had as much of an effect as it did on the mini. So reliant on road maps and the AA routeplanner which i had printed off just in case, we continued into the labaryth that is Newcastle upon tyne. Came off the A1 at the wrong junction and got directions from two lovely ladies at a Shell garage.
I have to say I've stayed at better hotels. This was one of those dives intended for the drunk and unwashed. The bedroom consisted of one double bed with a bunk bed over the top of it. In the corner was a small wash basin and in another corner a TV perched on a plinth. There was one socket which only seemed to work for the kettle and that's that. The toilets were at the end of the corridor along with the shower cubicles. They were self-cleaning TBH there was more room in my camper shower than in those. In fact it was like sleeping in a caravan because of all the noise made by people walking up and down the corridors, the floor even seemed to move as they walked. Herds of elephants spring to mind. Fortunately they were all there for the GNR, so there were no parties going on.

RACE DAY

I had been talking to a really nice chap called Phil and arranged to meet up with him at 8am on sunday morning with the intention of catching the metro to the Haymarket and then after the race we were to catch the ferry to North Shields and from there the metro back into newcastle. However, when I woke up on Sunday, I got this urge to drive over to South Shields and leave the car there. I would then pick it up after the race and just drive off home. So that's what we did. packed up quickly, set off at 7am and after getting directions, headed off for South Shields.
The traffic was building up quite heavily as we got into South Shields with most of the cars going into the Leas car parks or to one across the road. However, we'd been told to go to marsden's cove which is just about at mile 12. Plenty of people had the same idea but we managed to park just slightly on the kerb so as to give others enough room to get past me.

We just managed to leg it for the last shuttle bus back to the start. I must say it seemed further than 13.1 miles!! The throngs were gathering around the Haymarket station with everyone following along like sheep towards the start. I spotted the loos and of course headed straight for one of the queues. Considering there were 54000 participants and their relatives, there were very few portaloos available and none, so far as I'm aware, had any loo paper left in them.

I had a green number so I had to negotiate my way past the elites, then the orange, white and then to the green pen where I dutifully walked in and as close to the front as I could. It was quite a long wait before the start and my eyes kept wandering to the bushes up the hill where people kept ducking in and out - should I or shouldn't I? I decided to hold my dignity (and my bladder) and carried on with the warm up in a slightly less enthusiastic manner than i would had I made that little trip up the hill.

The warm up was very good and really got us all in the mood. I'm sure the poor gorilla behind me (not Graham) was roasting under all that fur.

Off went the wheelchair race, followed by the ladies elite then the men with the masses at 10:40. I set my garmin several times whilst waiting to start but it was 11.01 before i crossed the start line making absolutley sure I touched hands with Sting as I went past (such an old groupie).

It was a slow start, only to be expected with all the runners, and I tried to keep to my pace as much as possible. The sun was out and so were the crowds shouting and cheering us on. It was quite a spectacle. I'd heard that if you keep to the right as you approach the flyover you go up and over with the possibility of seeing the red arrows, but if you keep left you go in the underpass. As a big red arrows fan, I hopped over to the right lane and low and behold there they came, right on queue. I got quite emotional.

The next landmark was the Tyne bridge. If only I'd set off sooner I would've been on that when the red arrows flew over. Now that would've been special. I couldn't help singing away to myself "the fog on the tyne is all mine all mine "as I was going over it.

The race just seemed to consist of one long hill after another and was I glad I'd done lots of hill work in my training. There wasn't a single space free for people to stand all the way along the route. The people of Newcastle were fantastic. Some kids were squirting water at us whilst others were stood there with little boxes of change for the collections going round. there were jelly babies, orange segments, hand wipes. The generosity and kindness was second to none.

I particularly liked going past the fire station with the fireman squirting the fire hose at us (it was only sprinkling, but wasn't half refreshing)

People even had their garden hoses out spraying us.

Along one of the bridges there was a poster stating " This is the run where you leave your PB's behind" and I've got to say i know exactly what they mean. It was hard work with all the hills.

There were quite a few bands en route, but my favourite was the heavy rock band who were giving it their all on a roundabout near South Shields. They were fantastic and really lifted me.

I started to get a bit tired as we got into South Shields but managed to keep going thanks, I think, to the gels I'd packed in my bum bag I also managed to stride out a bit to try to make up a bit of time.

It's a lovely sight as you get your first glimpse of the sea, but I knew that was only mile 12 and I still had another 1.1 miles to go. It was a good 1.1 miles though, with all the relatives and friends of the runners shouting a cheering. Also, the red arrows just came into sight again so I was a bit distracted watching them go through their manoevres.

400m mark (why change to metres?) I managed to stave off the cramp starting to hurt in my calf and kept on going to the end.

My watch said 2.22 but the official time was 2.24.56 - (but I did stop for the loo so I guess that makes up for the 2 mins or so).

I wasn't impressed with the goodie bag a bag of crisps or something salty would've been nice but all I got apart from the t shirt and medal was a bottle of energy drink, a sticky cereal bar and a sample of vaseline. Let's just hope the charities did well out of it.

GOING HOME

Well I had arranged to meet Graham at the Z family meet area, but couldn't find him, nor could I phone him as the lines were jammed, so I texted him to say go back to the car. 1 1/2 hours later he appeared. I was getting really cold by this time as I didn't have a key to get into the car so i was reliant on my t shirt and the foil blanket to keep me warm. I'd eaten the biscuit and bought an ice cream earlier and was getting serious munchies.

So he eventually made it to the car, let me in, and I managed to get into some warm clothes whilst he went for some hot drinks for us.

The traffic was horrendous all the way down to the A1 when we set off home and it took us 5 hours. We had to make a few diversions to get out of traffic and decided to go via blubberhouses on the A61 and from harrogate we picked up the A59 through Skipton and Bolton Abbey. a lovely route, very picturesque.

As we got through Pendle, the traffic was at a standstill and I noticed people turning round, so I did the same and took a side road which I'd spotted, leading to Barnoldswick. From there we went through Colne (stopping at KFC for some tea) and from there onto the M65 to home.

So that's it. GNR 2009 box ticked. In the words of every runner ---NEVER AGAIN!!!!