Memories of Douglas Number 15

THE GREAT NORTH RUN

The Great North Run is taking place today on Tyneside. It is the world's most popular half marathon road run. It was the brainchild of former Olympic 10,000 metre medalist and BBC sports commentator Brendan Foster. He was inspired after running in The Round The Bays Race in New Zealand in 1979. He had the idea of a mass fun run which also included elite runners. The very first Great North Run was in 1981 and attracted 12,000 entries. Now they get over 40,000 entries.

My late husband Douglas had been a " jogger " all his adult life. It started off as part of his rugby training in his youth and he just kept it up over the years. He just did his own thing - jogged to work and back, jogged after work, jogged at weekends. We watched the first Great North Run on TV - Douglas wasn't bothered about entering as he preferred to run alone.

Over the next few year he started having thoughts about entering and after some encouragement from me he entered the race in 1985. I decided to go to the start with him - calm his nerves, see him off, look after his kit etc.

The atmosphere at the start was wonderful - so many runners - so much expectation. The runners were all lined up on the Central Motorway in Newcastle and I stood on the side and watched Douglas depart for the 13 mile journey to South Shields. I stayed there till the very last runner had crossed the finish line, clapping them on their way - this takes ages I can tell you.

Then I made my way to the Metro station to get the transport to the finish. As you can imagine I wasn't the only one with the same idea. Trains were full so I had to wait a while before I got on one. Train was packed and I had to stand all the way to South Shields. Then there was quite a walk to the finish. They have meeting points at the finish - letters of the alphabet - so I went our letter to wait for Douglas. I knew that he would just about have finished and it wasn't long before he arrived. Exhausted but so proud of his achievement. (As was I ) We left immediately to make the journey back to Newcastle on the Metro. So my long and tedious journey to the finish was a bit pointless and in the future we decided that I wouldn't bother going to South Shields as I could never get there in time to see Douglas actually finish.

So Douglas had finished his first Great North Run aged 57 and in a very respectable time of 1 hour 50mins.

He found that he enjoyed organised races and proceeded to compete in over 200 more - various distances from fun runs of a couple of miles to full marathons - all over the UK and abroad.

He completed 13 Great North Runs and I always went to the start with the children to see him off and we waited in Newcastle until he made his way back there on The Metro.

Douglas did his last Great North Run in 2000 aged 72 in a time of 2 hours 46 mins.

My blip shows a photo of Douglas I took before the 1985 event, one of his medals, his certificate from the year 2000 and a photo of him back home after the 2000 event.

More about Douglas's running exploits tomorrow............