Jude Glynn reports on the Greater Manchester Marathon – April 2014

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No more sleeps-today we run! Marathon Day had finally arrived and when Katie Thomas and I met up in the exotic location of Altrincham Travelodge Reception the excitement of running our first marathon had well and truly turned to nausea! Katie’s husband Dan kindly drove us to Old Trafford and whilst he battled to reach the car park we had time to soak up the pre-race atmosphere. Thankfully we weren’t also soaking up the forecast heavy rain as, hurrah, it was dry and actually near perfect race weather 🙂

Then it was off to the start, the gun went off and we were running our first marathon! The course was described as fast and flat and it delivered. There was excellent local support, plenty of water (in weird plastic pouches!),gels, shot blocks and unofficial jelly babies etc. to -keep us going. The course winds out through the suburbs, back, in fact past (the actually rather pleasant ) Altrincham Travelodge- with a few out and back parts where you could spot both the faster runners and friends.

My aim was to get under 4 hours so, with a choice of 3.45 or 4 hour pacers, I hung round the 3.45 group for as long as possible also tried to keep Terry Docherty in my sights who I’d spotted up ahead! I reached the 20 mile point at around my Ashby time of 2:52 and felt much better than then- the lack of hills perhaps?! I’d never run further than this though and my pace certainly slowed but as long as I could keep the miles under 10 mins. I’d make it :).

Then the end was in sight- I almost didn’t want it to be over-and I crossed the finish line in 3:51:30 -feeling awesome!

Terry was having some grief near the end and at one point I passed him  when he was reduced to a run/ walk but he rallied to run past me and finish in 3:50:12.

Katie’s ‘dodgy’ ankle gave out on her around mile 20 but she wasn’t going to let anything as trivial as excruciating pain defeat her and she battled on in agony to finish in 5:17 :13 -respect!

Our efforts were rewarded with a HUGE medal, a decent technical Tshirt (XS available for the, well, smaller among us!) and a car sticker to sandwich nicely between my BVH ones 🙂 In short a great marathon for both first timers and those hoping to shave minutes off their time-loved it!

Full results – http://www.runbritainrankings.com/results/results.aspx?meetingid=91585&top=10000

6 Replies to “Jude Glynn reports on the Greater Manchester Marathon – April 2014”

  1. You’ve certainly taken a sad song and made it better!…(smily face)

  2. Hey Jude
    You go from strength to strength and 3.51 is an awesome achievement. Well done.

  3. Fantastic! Well done Jude, and what an amazing time 🙂
    What’s next on the marathon wish list…?!

  4. Well done to all of you. Great running Jude and Terry. Katie – you rest up that ankle and get it right before running again. It was your first marathon and you’ve done the distance now – and you know that next time will be a pb! Fantastic Team Teal. Great report Jude.

  5. Thankyou Jude for your Report on the Greater Manchester Marathon 2014. Congratulations to everyone,especially the BvHers, who successfully completed the full marathon distance. Your families,friends and neighbours should be very proud of your achievements. Well done.
    I have completed a number of marathons (not recently),.but have never worn a medal as large as the 2014 Greater Manchester Marathon Medal.
    Jude – your time of 3:51:30 for a first marathon was fantastic.
    Katie – I hope that you will take best advice re:ankle injury.There can be times when it is sensible to pull out of a race.
    Terry – Clearly you ran through the pain barrier!

  6. well done jude Awesome time for your first marathon.Well done katie andvTerry to.