Parkrun done and home for breakfast number 2, then jump in the shower and head off to town.

Arrive at Central and grab a sandwich and drink and then can't resist the lure of Burger King for lunch number 1. Dave C spots me and comes in to heckle me for my food choice and rightly so but as a world class athlete I think burger and fries is the perfect choice.

Onto the train and bump into Rob and Kay, us civilised folk are travelling first class. Rob and Kay are obviously civilised, I on the other hand paid £8 on seatfrog because I'm tight and the lure of free food and drink was too much for me to resist.

A nice journey where I stuffed my face.

As I write this at 2pm I have had 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches and snacked on crisps and haribos and drank 2 coffees, a bottle of electrolyte drink, a Maurten carb drink, a bottle of coke and a bottle of water.

Oh and a flapjack.

And a Yorkie honeycomb.

And a satsuma, got to get the fruit in.

Arrive in Manchester, go to the pub for a coke and eat copious amounts of takeaway pizza for tea.

I start at 9:20, I decide I'll get ready at 8:30 and go to the toilet and walk across to the start, this gives me plenty of time to sort everything.

Get my shorts and shoes on, grab my bag and head to the toilet area where I can 'lube up' in private and put my vest on and generally sort myself out. As I enter the toilet area I hear the announcer shouting that blue wave should already be at the start and he's getting a little irate saying this is the last call for blue wave and all runners should now be through the start and gathering. I glance around and notice everyone seems to have the bronze number on which is the wave after mine, I haven't sorted my gels, haven't deep heated my legs, haven't 'lubed' up, haven't been to the toilet! 

I decide to stand next to a large skip and do the lube followed by the deep heat.

Experience has taught me to never get these jobs in the wrong order or you're in for a world of pain.

I smear deep heat all over my legs and particularly across my shin and calf's and up towards my hip where I've been having issues.

Roll on deep heat is crazy stuff, it burns so much and seems to be so much hotter than normal deep heat, within seconds my legs are on fire and I'm getting a bit of a sweat on and my plan here is that the constant burning will stop me feeling the injury. Stuff gels into my pockets and chuck my bag in the bin and I'm off.

Barge my way through the bronze people and head to the final portaloos before the start.  A marshall shouts at me and tells me I haven't got time and I need to keep moving because the pen is closing.  I decide I'll just do a 'Bain' if I need to and keep moving.

Heading across the flyover to the start and bump into Jon, Chris and Matt D and we spot Matt M on the other side of the road. It's warm and getting hotter, me and Chris have a chat about race plans and decide we're backing off from the start and seeing how the heat affects us.

20 minutes later and it's time to start, the temp has risen again and it feels way hotter than the 16 degrees it says it is.

The next three miles go by in 7:37, 7:46 and 7:49 and now I watch Chris once again start to pull away and at this point I know I don't have it in me to go with him. I'm so hot, I'm sweating buckets, my vest is soaked through and clinging to me and I'm drinking a full bottle at every water station.

The next few miles are a bit of a blur, I can feel my feet slapping the ground and a couple of times I stumble forwards because I'm not lifting them enough, I get to 20 miles after a 7:53, 8:09, 8:14 and an 8:06. It feels way slower than this and at this point is start noticing a lot of people in trouble at the side of the road. Medics are lifting a lot of people onto stretchers and a few guys with smashed up faces where they've gone down hard onto the road.  This is enough to make me realise I need to be sensible here, I'm not built for the heat.

At 20 miles I know I need to slow or there's a chance I won't be finishing. I keep going with the gels and I'm desperate for a drink and there doesn't seem to be any water stations coming up, I've slowed a lot but still moving. I get to 23 miles after an 8:14, 8:41, 8:39 and now it's just 5k to go but it may as well be another 23 miles at this point as I am absolutely done.

At this point my hip also decides to remind me it's still here and starts to seize up, the deep heat has all sweated off me and I have to swing my leg a bit to stop it hurting. Now I did this in York and put my back out and I can feel my back twining so I have to stop and stretch out my hip and back and then get moving again.

This mile is a world of pain and takes me 10:10 and any thoughts of a decent time are long gone, I managed to get moving again with an altered gait and I'm at 25 miles after a slightly improved 9:47

My slowest road marathon so far (we don't talk about Kielder) and not the sub 3:25 I wanted but I'm a big lad and I don't do heat, I'm not annoyed or disappointed, just relieved to have stopped running.

See Jon at the finish who has smashed a PB and he tells me how sweaty I am, he's right of course.

Head to the pub with my brother, Lily and the Heany's.

I need to get changed as I must stink, have a quick drink first and then a slow painful walk to the toilet to attempt to remove my sweat soaked clothes and put some clean dry things on.  Now you'll recall at York in October this resulted in me crying and an old lady having to help me do my trousers up and put my socks on for me.  I tell my brother that if I'm not back in 10 minutes he's gonna have to come into the toilet and help me get dressed, that's brotherly love right there.

The toilet cubicle is a good size but has no flat surfaces to put anything on, for some reason in Manchester a lot of pubs make all the surfaces sloped so you cant put things on them, very strange.  The toilet also has no seat so i cant put anything on  there.  I opt for a brilliant balancing of all my clothes on top of a single toilet troll on the floor.  I'm now standing in the toilet stark naked and realise bending over to pick things up from the toilet roll is going to be tricky.  A few sighs and groans and im half dressed, I reckon i can do this without any assistance, that's 1-0 to me.

Shoes and socks once again prove tricky but this time no tears, 2-0 to me. 

The Poly crew all arrive sooner or later and everyone has similar stories of hard fought runs.  Matt takes the prize for war wounds with his blood soaked trainers and his feet seem to be more blisters than feet.

4 pints of Guinness, a Vietnamese meal, another pint of Guinness and half a bottle of wine and my day is done.

I'm wrecked and head to bed.

Want to read all about my London adventure in 2023.

It's mostly about Ben, my sausage dog nemesis and wine.

LONDON CALLING

Well you've read the last two so may as well carry on.

Manchester, so much to answer for.  Yeah Ben gets a mention or two

MANCHESTER  - THE SECOND COMING