This was the fourth year in a row that I ran the Great North 10k. Geth and I were discussing on the way home how maybe we’d give it a miss next year…and then it was announced online that next year will be a really special edition, as it will be the kickoff party for the celebration of the 40th Great North Run year. So I expect we probably will be back in 2020!
I wasn’t expecting to break any records on Sunday as I’d had a month off running since the Blaydon Race. Blaydon was a really miserable experience for me this year due to running it with a cold, so it kind of put me off for a bit, and I’ve also really been struggling to make time to run during the week. Couple that with the fact that Geth’s not been able to go to parkrun recently because it clashes with his Keyforge tournaments, which means that I’m also not going to parkrun because it’s something we’re in the habit of doing together…well, it all added up to not getting any running in at all for the last four weeks, which I obviously hadn’t intended.
As such, I found that I had a bit of chest pain for the first couple of kilometres, and was worried that it would last for the whole race. However, once I found my comfortable pace, my body got used to it again and I had a really good run after that. I came in at 1:13:04, just under a minute slower than last year’s 1:12:05 – under the circumstances I’m very happy with that!
One more 10k later this month and then it’s all preparation for this year’s Great North Run.