Just one race... but thousands of winners

Happy families and great causes all feel the benefit

IHAD a shower and swapped a few war stories from out on the course. I told people I could have run faster if I had done any proper training, just like I told people I could have got better grades in my college exams if had done more work. I got changed, went into the marquee next to the finishing line and had something to eat.

After a while, an announcement said the buses would not be leaving for Newcastle city centre for another hour. I wandered outside and heard the commentator’s voice urging the crowd to cheer someone on in the last few yards of their race. I looked up at the digital clock. It said three hours and 13 minutes had elapsed since the start of the Great North Run.

I went over to the raised platform next to the finishing line and stood on the front step, leaning on the railings. I could see the last 30 metres or so of the half-marathon course from there. Hordes of runners were still pouring on to the grass section that marks the final few yards of the 13-mile race on the beautiful South Shields sea front.

I noticed two women. Their blue vests told me they were called Katie and Brennie. The run had taken a lot out of them. They were spent. They grasped each other’s hands as they ran those last few yards and then I saw that Brennie had started to cry uncontrollably.

The message on her vest said ‘United we run against dementia’ and I wondered whether she had suddenly become overwhelmed by the thought of someone she was running this for. Her father, maybe, or her mother. Someone who had been claimed by the cruel disease.

Katie comforted her as they walked away. I watched a bit longer as the minutes ticked by and the runners kept coming. I looked at the sea of faces. The clock said this run had been a struggle for these people but I knew they would not make excuses about a lack of training. The race meant something more to them than time.

I saw a father and a daughter next, the man so tired that he was barely able to celebrate but happy because he had run the race with his girl. Maybe she was about to move away, I thought, like my eldest daughter will next week. Maybe this was the last thing they were doing together before life moved on, a final memory of youth and fatherhood.

I saw a woman, who could no longer run unsupported, being helped the last few yards by her friends. One on each side, her arms fell limply over their shoulders as they carried her over a finish line she barely knew was there.

I assumed they were friends but they may have been people

THE Football Association have done much to promote and support the cause of women’s football in this country in recent years but their handling of the allegations made by Eni Aluko against England manager Mark Sampson (right) bear all the hallmarks of a cover-up followed by a whitewash followed by a shutdown. Women’s football enjoys a higher profile than it used to but with profile comes scrutiny. It is time for the FA to take this investigation seriously. she had never met before. Events like the Great North Run have a habit of finding friends for you when you really need them. I thought of an article I wrote a few years ago, full of self-pity and self-regard, about running in the London Marathon and being filled with self-loathing because I had not been able to finish it without stopping. I got a letter from a colleague asking who t he hell I thought I was, disrespecting people like her who gave everything to finish the race and did not consider themselves failures because they had walked some of it. She was absolutely right. I’ve wised up a bit now. I only saw winners when I stood there last Sunday. One race and thousands upon thousands of winners.

I saw a woman who had edged ahead of her companion in the last few yards. She reached her hand back, without turning her head, to feel for her hand and pull her forward to make sure they crossed the line together.

I saw a woman clap her palm over her mouth as she crossed the line, doing everything she could to stop the emotion pouring out. It catches you by surprise sometimes when you finish. Sometimes, a run like that is a humanity reset, a re- education in the kindness of others. Sometimes the sobs come and you cannot stop them.

The clock had ticked past three hours and 50 minutes now and still the runners kept coming. That patch of grass leading to the finish was a highway of diamonds with hundreds upon it.

Often they finished hand-in-hand with their friends, three or four abreast, refusing to be separated. I went to the other side of the finish line. I saw a woman in her sixties in a blue peaked cap, who stopped and gazed around her as she realised it was over. She had run the race alone. She looked as if she wanted to hug someone. Then her face creased into a smile. On the other side of the fence, her partner was waving at her manically and blowing her kisses.

By now, a couple who had run the race together and crossed the line an hour or so earlier were standing near the finish surrounded by their wedding guests. When the ceremony was complete, the two women kissed each other and a machine blew great clouds of blue confetti into the North Sea breeze.

The buses were about to leave. Before I went, I saw a woman with a message on her T- shirt and I asked her to stop so I could read it. ‘I run,’ it said. ‘I’m slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter... but I run.’

I congratulated her on what she had done, finished jotting the words down and looked up at her. She was beaming. ‘I got there,’ she said.