What a day yesterday! As usual the Geordie crowd was fantastic encouraging the runners throughout. It’s been a few years since I’ve run the GNR and must admit found the course pretty tough – although there are no big hills, it seemed to me as though all the roads were inclined with the exception of the drop down on to the coast road at South Shields.

I set off carefully and was pretty comfortable early on, by about mile 6 my calfs began to tighten and I feared the worse, but managed to keep on running the next four miles with discomfort. By mile ten it had gone from discomfort to genuine pain and in truth I struggled for the next 3 and a bit miles. My physio Wayne Morton had not only done a fantastic job with the injury, but his general advice on the rehab and the running the race had been invaluable.

It’s in those final stages of the race you have to dig in and think of the reasons you are running and although you may experience pain – this is nothing in comparison to the millions of cancer sufferers that you are raising funds for.