The Great North Run 2008

Wow.

All I can say is that I'm in awe of people who have been doing the GNR for years now, how come I never knew how much fun it was?

I just have random thoughts to jot down that capture some of the amazing stuff that the GNR entails, it's really hard to put it into a coherent blog entry since i just want to spew all the stuff i saw and experienced onto the page, but here are some amazing points:

• the crowds of people cheering on the participants

• the 52,000 participants who go all out to raise money for their chosen charities(there were more charity t-shirts than not)

• the bands playing along the route every mile or so to motivate everyone along the way(the music REALLY helps to keep you going, as i'm sure you all know)

• the random on-lookers passing out handy-wipes & orange slices to people passing them by

• the St. Johns Ambulance crew members wearing blue plastic gloves smothered in vaseline for runners to swipe and get some much needed chaffage relief(who knew?!?!)

• the 80-something dude playing spoons(apparently he tried out for X-Factor?!) who beat us even AFTER he stopped a few hundred times along the way for his fans

• the 3 people dressed up as telly-tubbies carrying donation buckets

• a plethora of tutu & fairy wing wearing men & women

• the crazy-long queues for nasty non-toilet paper having port-a-loos

• the sneaky(or not so sneaky) people shimmying off the main route to have a wee in the bushes to keep down their race time

• the two guys carrying a (bigger than you expect)replica of the Tyne Bridge between them and running the whole 13.1 miles

• people running in full military gear, including boots and carrying their packs on their backs(can i just say: Ugh!!!!!)

• the kids looking on in amazement as a shark runs past them "hey, cool! it's a shark" was heard many many times

• the wave of momentum when you hear your name(written on your chest for all to see) called out by random on-lookers cheering you on and telling you that you've done great so far(i loved that!)

• Enjoying the overall experience with a special shark by your side helping to motivate you along the way by drip-feeding you jelly babies

I did manage to jog a little bit of it and i was pleased with that, especially since i didn't expect to be able to jog much at all due to injury which made it impossible for me to train properly, etc(see previous entries), but the majority of it was walked and we still finished in 3 hours and 21 minutes! I was very careful and listened to my body when it yelled at me to stop, altho it's still yelling a bit now when i attempt the stairs, altho much less loudly, ha! :)



So all in all, what an amazing feeling to have completed the race and collected my t-shirt and medal at the finish line.

I am pretty proud of myself and so far the tally is close to £850 with a few more donations to collect yet, so wow, i am constantly amazed with everyones generousity - THANK YOU for helping me to raise so much money for such a worthy cause close to our hearts!!!!!

Nervousness sets in....

The race is in 4 days and boy am I nervous!!

Next week at this time I will be able to say proudly that I have participated in the world's largest half-marathon and raised a chunk of change for a very worthy charity by doing so....Yay!

I'm sure if my cats could speak they would be telling everyone(not that they see many people in their day, but you know what i mean) that i have been waking up in the middle of the night from having silly dreams, bordering on silly nightmares, about forgetting to start the race, about getting lost in the sea of people (52,000 participants!!! And that's not including their on-lookers and other assorted hangers-on - Eeeek!), and last but not least... about it raining on my camera for 13.1 miles - this is England ya know! I wouldn't mind getting drenched myself, in fact i used to quite enjoy a nice jog in the rain, there was just something very satisfying about it. I will just be VERY upset if my camera went kaplooey and I lost all the photographic evidence from the day.

Anyway... thinking positively, and avoiding my cats judgements about my nervousness, I am going to eat a hearty but healthy carbo-filled dinner on Saturday and get a good nights rest (I'm crossing my fingers for no nightmarey-dreams!) and have myself a great Great North Run experience! And then i'll tell YOU all about it!

But maybe you'll be watching it yourself on the BBC or maybe catch snippets of it on the websites....here's one of the regional BBC sites that may have some coverage on the day:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/great_north_run/

:)