BUPA Great North Run

Yesterday was the BUPA Great North Run. I went up there because I work for a charity. We had about 70 runners taking part raising money for us so we hired a marquee in the 'charity village'. This is an area by the finish line which is full of marque's hired by charity and everyone decorates them and you have food and drinks and massage for your runners. It's a brilliant atmosphere and a great day.

We travelled up on the Saturday in our white van. Sarah and I shared the driving and had great fun dancing along, chatting, waving and beeping at other drivers. Two young women in the front of a white van get some funny looks!!

We stayed overnight and got very little sleep due to nightmares about my ex-manager (long story!) and the couple in the room nextdoor waking not only us up but also the people in the room next to us! We then got up at 4:30am to leave the hotel at 5:30 to make sure we were at the village, unloaded and offsite by 8:00am. We think we slightly overestimated the traffic as we were sitting in our tent, fully unloaded and parked offsite at 6:45!

Whilst our sports therapists and volunteer slept in the van, Sarah and I started making interesting displays with bottles of water, cans, packets of crisps and balloons. We got some unsuspecting young guy to bang things into the ground for us and we were pretty much ready to go by 9am.

As we stood eating cereal out of metal curry tins using tiny plastic spoons, I realised just how much I love my job!

The charity I work for provides care and support to anyone whose lives have been affected by leukaemia, lymphoma and the other allied blood disorders. Our services are available not only to patients but to family members and carers as well. I work in the fundraising department so whilst I don't see that much of the 'care' side, occasionally I understand how worthwhile my job is that I can help raise the money that lets us do this.

Once the runners started to come in thing got underway. Each one was greeted with a round of applause and a hug (I've never hugged so many sweaty men in my life!). We chatted with them and heard stories from around the race. I met people with truely amazing stories and reasons for running for us. The friends and family of our runners were there too. One of our runner's wives was there and she suffers from AML. She just kept saying thank you and how much our charity meant to her and her family.

It was a grat day. I laughed and chatted. I love meeting our fundraisers. They are all such great people.

We packed the van and got on the road at about 6:00pm. The problem with the Great North Run is that it involves about 75,000 leaving Newcastle at the same time. It was due to this that it took us about 7 hours to drive back to Worcester. I drove all the way as I was more awake. Got back into Worcester about 1:15 and was still in work for 9am!

That's what I call hardcore!!