Great North Run - well it was ok, I suppose..

Top Tip, runfans - training almost certainly helps you run faster.

A satisfactory day out at the GNR but much, much harder than running at that pace should be.  The start was pretty horrid - as I (think) I put an expected finish of about 1:25 down I was in what I thought was a decent pen - but actually it was HYOOOOGE and the first mile was slow and involved lots of weaving round people running really very slowly.  Got into my running after about a mile and a half but then my Garmin went a bit wonky in the underpasses and was reading about 0.2m short, but after what it told me was a 5:47 second mile (it wasn't - nearer 7:30) it was showing 6:30 per mile til the road went upwards when I slowed to just under 7's.

The adjusted target for my injury (and pie) wracked body was sub-90 so I reckoned with a few 6:30's I could afford to slow a bit on the uphills, and sure enough I hit 5k in 21m, 10k in 42 and 15k in 63m - so "even paced" was the name of the game and as sub-90 requires 21:20 per 5k so I had maybe a minute in the bank.

But at about 10miles I started to really feel the lack of training and/or the surfeit of food - and whilst I didn't slow too much it just got really, really hard.  The top of the last climb is just after 11m and that section was really hard, with a 7:08 mile, and even the amazing support on the sea front didn't produce a significant acceleration although I did dip down below 7's again.

The finish seemed to be getting no nearer, and as my Garmin said 13.1m before it was properly in sight I got momentarily grumpy and wished I was somewhere else.

In the end it was 1:29:08 for 489th place (and amazingly for such a big race, 36th MV45) - so definitely in the "satisfactory" camp but far too much like hard work.  In the "race a celebrity" stakes I took a scalp I've been after for a while, passing Tony Audenshaw (or "Bob off Emmerdale" as he's known in our house) on the Tyne Bridge, but I'm sure Nell McAndrew will be pleased to have taken revenge for the kicking I gave her in the Dewsbury 10k in 2007.

Here's a clever thing from the Nike website that shows how Bob off Emmerdale was left trailing in my wake...