On May 21st 2006, I ran my first long-distance timed-event, the BUPA Manchester Great Run, in typical Mancunian weather (rain!). When I signed up for the event in January, I'd never run more than 2k, and that was all on the treadmill, but I thought I'd treat myself on the first anniversary of coming to Manchester (yes, I moved up 21st May 2005)! I aimed to complete it in under 1.5 hours...

Some famous people starting off the white wave, including Freddie Flintoff and Sir Alex Ferguson, sent off to a bit of a rendition (MVI, 1.7MB)

'In the pink' warm-up area

We head towards the start... at which point I put my camera away 'cos I want to do the best time I can (bearing in mind that I did 5k the previous Saturday in 41 minutes...)

Here I am - wet, cold, but finished... see below for time!

Beautiful medal... next step one from the Wilmslow Half-Marathon in March 2007.

With an aim for 1.5 hours, think this is a pretty good result. By 5k I realised I was only on about 32 minutes, but at that point needed to walk for a few seconds... Don't think I've ever run more than 8k before outside, so the last couple were pretty hard!