Great North Run, 1st October 2006

We woke up at 7:30am, after 6 hours sleep with a sickening sense of impending doom and promptly hit the snooze button.  It's important to be rested on a big day.  We finally dragged ourselves out of bed half an hour later thanks to our hosts (Helen & Mike) putting the kettle on.  After a good breakfast & denial about what we were about to do we set about getting ourselves tooled up for the day. 

All the books say that you shouldn't try anything new on the big day, but here we were with our new pro running gear,  fancy socks & carbohydrate gels.  All the books also say you should train before trying to run half a marathon and we really didn't pay much attention to that.  At least we're consistant.

We got down to the starting line at about 10am and made our way to our starting zone (based on how good we thought we were going to be 5 months ago).  The nerves were obviously getting to people already based on the number of people peeing in the bushes - we weren't the only amateurs.  "It's not just us that's rubbish - look that guy can barely walk, we'll beat him."  As long as weren't going to be last...

After the gun was fired for the professional runners we knew it would be us next.  The organisers kicked off a mass warm up for the rest of us to get us ready to run. Unfortunately 1/2hr of jumping around doesn't make up for 2 months of sitting on your backside. Nearly though.

Finally, at 10:50am they fired the starting pistol and we were off.  Sort of. About 10 minutes passed while the movement worked its way back from the starting line and we could finally begin walking forward. This gave us just enough time to seriously question what we were doing.  "Still time to pull out. Only 13 miles, how hard can it be? Why?"

Then, 15 minutes after the starting gun was fired, we walked across the starting line and stepped up into a run that, more or less, carried on right to the finish.

Louise says

Louise's Smiling "Finish Line" Photos

Martin Says

Starting with a dodgy knee meant I wasn't going to be setting any Olympic records. In the weeks before I could barely run a mile due the pain and by the race we'd agreed that we could just walk it if needed be hopefully still finishing within the limit (and beating Carol Vorderman as a bonus).

To try and ease the pain I'd got a knee support. I didn't know if it would help but I certainly looked quite professional - very important when you're staggering at the back of the pack.  It seemed to do the trick.  Where I'd normally be out by the end of the first mile I managed to make it to mile 2 before getting a twinge... and it kept on going.  Only when passing the 10 mile did it get unbearable enough to need a stop for ice.

From there on it was pretty unpleasant - but it wouldn't have made sense to stop when we were making good steady progress.  We'd dropped back from our starting lineup to get in with people who were going more our pace and altogether we managed to keep moving right to the end.

I was feeling pretty sorry by the finish but together we forced a little sprint to make 3hrs 8secs. It was only at this point that I finally realised how sore everything was and my legs started to seize.

Thankfully they'd been expecting me and had physios ready and waiting. After some very professional kneecap wiggling I was up and able to limp away feeling pretty good.  Strangely, my knees are now better than they were before the run. 

Martin's Grimacing "Finish Line" Photos

Thankyou

We both just want to say thankyou to everyone who has donated so far & everyone else who does over the coming weeks.  All the support we've had really means a lot to us both & kept those legs moving even when it was feeling pretty unpleasant. With each new person costing £70 to put them on the bone marrow register, our £700 target could add 10 new donors to the Athony Nolan Trust's register.  So thanks & give yourself a big pat on your back.

Martin & Louise