Saturday saw us fly up to newcastle for the 2004 Great North Run. This is the third time we had entered, but the first that we’d done it as a race, rather than a sponsored fun run – having asked everyone we know to sponsor us for GNR’s in 2002 & 2003, and the London Marathon in 2004, we thought it was about time we gave everyone’s staggering generosity a little break.

Previously we’d stayed in a TravelLodge outside the city, and in a small B&B in Whitley Bay, and each time we’d found the time taken to get back to the digs after the run to be a little longer than we’d have liked. This time we decided to try Newcastle town centre, so we booked early.

Central we asked for, and central we got, the piccy of the Tyne Bridge is taken from our hotel room, so the walk to the start on Sunday morning took us less than 20 minutes. This also meant that we were able to have breakfast at a sensible time, not rush it, and therefore have the best fuelling we could hope for during the race.

I catch myself at this point, and note that I have now called it a race on two occasions – this is a mental shift from calling it “a run” or some other euphamism for lolloping around 13 miles.

The GNR has a good numbering system, where the colour of your number can be used to identify the type of run you’re aiming to do. Red numbers are people who’ve done it 10 times or more. Blue numbers are the elite, white numbers are the riff raff (i.e. us) and orange numbers are people who have a predicted time of under 1 hour and 40 mins. At the start of the race (which is over 1/2 a mile deep) the blue and red runners go at the front, the the oranges, then the rest. Along the mile 1/2 mile that stretches back from the start are predicted time markers so you can go and stand (and run) with people who should be running at the same speed as you. this is good for several reasons; fun-runners are less tempted to go off too fast in the first few miles (a common mistake) and more serious runners don’t have slower runners ahead of them, so there are fewer injuries and the serious runners can get a good time.

What happens (in reality) is that you still get fun-runners overestimating their ability, and going way too far forward. this year, I was at the front of the white pack, and really, in amongst the tail end of the orange-numbered runners, yet I still spent the first two miles absolutely wedged in amongst people who were running slower than me, and who had a shorter stride and all of us were having to negotiate people who were stopping or barging.

Anyhow, a slow first couple of miles is not too bad a thing, since over 13 miles it’s possible to up the pace a little in the remaining miles and still end up on the same time. With the right fuelling strategy, and the right training means a strong finish is much more important than a strong start.

The thing that surprised me most was the difference in attitude up front. Noticable by the reduced amount of hollering as we went through the early underpasses – further back (as we have been twice before) you get a lot of oggy-oggy-oggy going on, but not up front, people seem to be more race focussed.

At mile 8, I asked someone nearby for a time check and they told me it was 64 minutes, so we’d approximated 8 minute miles to that point (though because of the time taken to cross the start it was really start it was more like 7:45. this was an unofficial time, but it gave me a fair indication that if I could keep my pace up, I was on for a pb. At mile 10, there was an official clock, 1:23:ish. If I could keep 10 minute mile pace then I’d finish in an official time of 1:53, two mins over my pb – and since it took me over 2 mins to get over the start I was still on for a good time.

With only three miles to go I knew I had enough left in me, so I started to increase the pace – I wasn’t really sure by how much, but I lengthened my stride, stretched out the leg muscles a bit, and started to drive a little more. Around this time I’d also finished off the energy drink I’d carried so I grabbed an ice-pop and a couple of boiled sweets that the spectators were handing out. It may be psychological, but slowly trickling the sugar from a boiled sweet as you’re running along really helps with the “not getting too sapped of energy” and I found that I could keep up the faster pace.

There was a clock at the start of the last mile, but I don’t recall what it said, is just remember going down the hill onto the seafront as carefully and as quickly as I could and then turning for the last mile and pushing. I crossed the line in 1:44:29.

My previous PB was 1:51:51 with a 30 second start latency, so the unofficial time was 1:51:31. I know it took me more than 2 minutes to cross the line, so my new pb is (at worst 1:44.29-00:2:00) 1:42:29. nine minutes faster, and I know I can beat that with a smaller field. This means that next year, if I train just a little harder and I can ask for an orange number. The other comforting thing is that the first time we ran the GNR, our time was 2:29, so I’m now completing the time a full 45 minutes faster than previously – it’s true that I didn’t run flat out on the first run, but I was still completely knackered and could barely walk the next day. This year, both Em & I were pretty much right as rain the next day.

After finishing and changing, I went up to the meeting area just in time for Em to get in – she too had broken her pb by three minutes, coming in a 2:08, and was extremely happy – she’d started further forward this year and it had made a significant difference to her race. Two PB’s in 2 weeks, Em’s on a roll and is starting to think like a runner.

Getting away from South Shields is not the easiest thing in the world, and I think our plan of last year was the best (find a pub and sit it out in comfort, with a meal) whereas this year’s metro-based travel was more tiring since it involved walking and queuing. We stopped off in an franchised burger restaurant and had a snack to see if the queue would go down – it didn’t, but it did move a lot – with approximately 600 people leaving every 5 minutes credit has to go to the police and the organizers who do very good job – they even had a local DJ pulling people out of the queue and doing little competitions so at least it was entertaining.

Next year, the plan is probably to get a place in South Shields, or to camp on the seafront.