Race Report: Great North Run

I had entered the Great North Run Half Marathon early in the year not that I had any real desire to run it but I thought I would see what the fuss was about and why 50,000 people run it each year, and to be honest was tired of non-runners asking me if I had ran it. 

From a personal point of view I can’t think of anything worse than a commercial large scale road race as it’s not my scene but hey ho before I knew it September was upon me and it was race day.

I drove up from Weaverham to Newcastle Sunday morning at 05:00am with a couple of friends who were new to running which took 3 hours of driving which was a good drive due to no traffic and found a great car park close to the start. For some reason I was positioned right at the back in pink wave which would have left me with a lot of work to do to get a good time if I had wanted to but as it happens one of my friends had not done any training for this race due to injury so we decided to stick together as I wasn’t bothered about a time anyway. 

The rain got heavier and heavier as the race went on and everyone was soaked, and the amount of discarded water bottles on the floor made it lethal at times at the water stations and a few times ambulances drove through us sirens blasting to get to someone in need.

Eventually 3 hours later we reached the finish where I was very grateful I could just reach into my bag and put my dry clothes on and waterproof coats as the weather was horrendous and there were a lot of people panicking because they were too cold and wet. It took us about 1 hour to catch up with our faster friend as no one could get a mobile signal then we had to get back to the start.

Option one wait in the queue for the bus in pouring rain for over an hour mmmm no, 

Option two walk to the tram station 20 mins away to get the metro back to the start and car which we did got to the station and the queue was at least half a mile long…we would have been all night….

Option three hail a cab and get to my car ASAP think you can guess which one I picked.

Well done to everyone who ran I was proud to have ran with you all …. Keep on running…

Would I run this race again? Probably not. Not a race for runners but probably depends where you start.

Facilities was very poor and to be honest so was the scenery.

Too many people for one race, but maybe that’s its charm. Atmosphere and determination of the people involved either running or helping with this event. Fantastic well done. 

For more information, visit the website.

Mat Simister