It may seem like a distant memory away but believe me, my legs still feel like it was yesterday Last Sunday by best friend Jess and I completed the Bupa Great North Run for Cancer Research and Breast Cancer Awareness - two charities very close to our hearts. We battled through 13.1 miles from Newcastle to South Shields along with 55,000 other brave soldiers and what an event it was.
Neither of us had participated in the event before which added to the first timer nerves, and our sights were set high to complete the race in under 2 hours. Weeks before the race, everybody had said 'try and enjoy yourself', 'soak up the atmosphere' and it was true. You can't quite grasp until you're there the amount of people taking part and quite how much you'll be affected.
The day didn't start out quite as planned... A quick change of bottoms on the metro (much to the delight of the fellas behind me) and an all important wee stop in the men's room (the girls was full) left us running a mile to the start line and out of breath already So our Olympic champ Christina Ohuruogu set us off and the race began with Mo Farah, Kenenisa Bekele & Haile Gebrselassie taking the lead. Within five minutes I was reduced to tears, reading the backs of everyone's vest 'In Memory Of...' 'In Celebration Of...' and couldn't stop waving and smiling to all the cheering crowd.
The miles ticked away and before we knew it we were at the 5K point (3.1 miles) and that's when the heavens opens... The rain poured and the wind blew, but amazingly the crowd just pulled you along the course. A fly over visit from the Red Arrows and a guy chanting songs gave us both that extra desire to keep on running - and pretending I was in Chariots of Fire.
All along the course kind people handed out bottles of water, powerade, energy drinks, oranges, sweets, beer (we resisted that one) and a sweet old lady threw everyone a sausage roll - the rumours were true, it really is all about the atmosphere. So eventually, a downhill descent landed us on to the sea front at South Shields and it was a sprint finish to the end - Usain Bolt style of course. So after months of training and fundraising we crossed the finish line My time was 2:02:09 and Jess' was 2:11:38 and due to the awful windy and rainy weather conditions, we were over the moon
Thoughts from a first timer? It was such an experience and I would encourage everyone to take part next year. I would even go as far to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it as it didn't matter about all the rain and the horrible conditions, we were running for two very good causes and managed to raise a chunk of money in the process Please take a few moments to look at our Just Giving page to read our stories and to find out exactly why we took part.