13.1 Miles Through Manchester. I Was Already on the Back Foot Before I Started

31 May 2026 — The Great Manchester Run nearly didn’t happen at all. Not because of fitness, not because of injury — but because of the Metrolink, a porta-loo queue, and a kind woman who let a slightly panicked me join the back of the last green wave at 0827, eighteen minutes after I was supposed to have started. Did it matter, not really... everyone’s race is on an individual chip time, but you are not following pacers and every blip on race morning feels like a mountain to climb. On top of that, it started raining whilst waiting to cross the start line.

Let me take you back to the beginning. The very beginning.

0445: The Alarm

Race morning started at 0445. Up, breakfast, kit on, out the door. There’s something quietly satisfying about being the only person moving at that hour — the town still asleep, the roads empty, the day not yet complicated.

The plan was simple: drive to Sale Water Park, park and ride, tram into the city, warm-up, race. I arrived at Sale Water Park just after 0600, got everything sorted, and was at the tram stop by 0615.

Plenty of time. Or so I thought.

0615 to 0720: The Wait

The tram was due. Then it was due again. Then it was still due.

I stood at that tram stop for over an hour. The tram arrived at 0720.

There is a particular kind of frustration reserved for race morning logistics failures — the sort where you’ve done everything right, set an alarm before five in the morning, driven across Cheshire, and still find yourself standing on a platform watching the race clock tick in your head with absolutely nothing you can do about it. No amount of pacing, stretching, or staring down the tracks makes the tram arrive any faster. How many trams can actually head towards Manchester Airport (empty trams), before one returns towards the city centre!

The 25-minute journey into the city was, at least, something. Manchester waking up through the tram windows. Tens of thousands of people already at Portland Street, already through bag drop, already in their waves. By the time I hit St Peter’s Square, the pens were already filling, and the warm-up was not far away.

The Porta-Loo Queue and the Green Wave

There was, naturally, a queue for the porta-loos. There’s always a queue. An enormous queue… By the time that particular pre-race formality was dealt with, my green wave had closed. The race was moving without me.

What saved it: a generous event volunteer who saw a man in mild distress and agreed to let him slot in at the back of the very last green wave as it was shuffling toward the start. I crossed the line at 0827 — eighteen minutes behind schedule.

From 0445 alarm to 0827 crossing the start line: two hours and forty-two minutes of travel, waiting, queuing and negotiating, all before a single running step.

What happens when you finally, finally, get to move?

Kilometre 1: 4:43/km

Pure adrenaline. That’s what happens.

My first kilometre was 4:43/km.

For context: a sub-2-hour half marathon requires roughly 5:41/km. A sensible opening for my fitness on this day might have been 5:45, maybe 5:30 at a push. Start slow and build… Four forty-three is not sensible. Four forty-three is over two hours of frustration, cold tram platforms, and a near-miss at the start line finally getting an outlet. Four forty-three is the legs doing what the brain had been desperate to do since 0615.

It felt, in the moment, absolutely brilliant.

It was also, in retrospect, a down payment on a debt that wouldn’t come due until somewhere around kilometre 16.

The Course Unfolding

The Great Manchester Run half marathon starts on Portland Street and finishes on Deansgate — a fast, atmospheric city-centre race past some of Manchester’s best-known landmarks. After the opening incline out of the city centre, the route joins the Mancunian Way — long, sweeping elevated roads where you can settle into rhythm and feel like you’re running well. East to the Etihad Campus, back west through Old Trafford, the Imperial War Museum North, the Coronation Street set, the Beetham Tower, through Trafford and around the Quays before the final run-in along Deansgate. Twenty-four entertainment zones. Bands and DJs from start to finish. And the Manchester crowd, who come out in force every year — genuine, loud, enthusiastic support that carries you when the legs start making other suggestions.

The data tells the story:

The HR column is the most honest part. Kilometres 1 through 3 at 111 bpm — the heart rate hasn’t caught up with what the legs are already doing. By km 5 it’s at 165. By km 7 it’s at 174 and stays there, locked in the mid-to-high 170s, for the rest of the race. The body was working hard from the very first step. It just hadn’t been told yet.

Halfway: 58:31

58:31 — a positive split was baked in from the moment I hit that first kilometre marker. The only question from halfway was whether the second half would be a managed drift or a full collapse.

The answer was a drift. Pace slipped from 5:27 in the early middle section to 6:23 by km 20 — but the heart rate stayed high and consistent. The body wasn’t giving up. It was giving everything it had, for longer than that opening kilometre deserved, and managing the decline rather than falling off a cliff. Kilometre 21 even came back to 6:10. There was something left. Just not quite enough to undo 4:43.

The Finish: Deansgate

I came down Deansgate and crossed the line. 02:02:24.

From a 0445 alarm and a long wait at the tram stop, a porta-loo queue and a last-minute wave negotiation, to 21.15 kilometres through the streets of Manchester — done. I crossed that finish line without stopping, but only just… I must have looked as if I was about to collapse, as I had volunteers pounce on me, spraying me with water. Once I had caught my breath and steadied myself, I continued down the funnel to pick up my goody bag, T-shirt and medal — the real reason that tens of thousands of people get up early on a Sunday morning!

A few hundred metres further on, and I was rolling around on the floor with severe cramp in quads and calves — I had not been taking in any electrolytes or salts… I should know better and a lesson that I will not be repeating!

The Numbers

The positive split — 58:31 out, 1:03:53 back — is exactly what a 4:43 first kilometre looks like at the finish line. Every race teaches you something. This one taught me that tram timetables are aspirational, and that adrenaline, while excellent, is not a pacing strategy.

Why This Matters

I’m training for the Himalayan XTri — a triathlon in Nepal in May 2027 involving a high-altitude swim, a brutal bike leg through the Himalayas, and a trail run that starts where most people’s nightmares end. It’s described without hyperbole as the world’s highest and toughest triathlon.

A day like Manchester — 0445 alarm, hour-long tram failure, late start, adrenaline-fuelled opening, managing a drift through 21 kilometres with a heart rate locked in the high 170s — that’s training for the unpredictable. In Nepal, nothing will go to plan either. The lesson isn’t that the logistics went wrong. The lesson is that when they do, you adapt, you absorb it, and you cross the line anyway.

Every mile is also part of the #Shadows2Giants campaign — raising funds and awareness for Park Lane Special School in Macclesfield, where remarkable young people show up every single day and give everything they have, regardless of what the day throws at them.

If they can do that, I can manage a late tram.

Day by day. Week by week. Stack the work. Keep moving.

Support the #Shadows2Giants campaign at www.shadows2giants.com

The AJ Bell Great Manchester Run takes place every May. www.greatrun.org