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The start of the Great Manchester Run last year.
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The L-plate athlete
Simon Donohue16/ 5/2008
IN the words of those poodle-haired Euro-rockers, Europe, it's the final countdown.
This Sunday, I'll be joining thousands of fellow L-Plate athletes, and no doubt a few professionals, as I take part in the Bupa Great Manchester Run.
I say take part rather than compete for good reason.
At the risk of making my excuses in advance, I'll simply be happy to make it around the 10K course in one piece.
My target time was to do the whole thing in around an hour, but what with the sun shining, and the possibility of tripping over people dressed in Tigger costumes, I'm not sure whether I'll even manage that.
And besides, it's the taking part which matters, isn't it?
Most of all I'm looking forward to the carnival atmosphere which the organisers promise is a regular fixture of the event.
Good work
There are cheering points and live music stands along the way, as well as a charity village telling you about all the good work which is made possible through events like this.
Keep an eye out for the team from the Manchester Evening News, who will be wearing distinctive yellow t-shirts expressing support for The New Children's Hospital Appeal.
I wimped out a little when they asked me which phase I'd like to run in, and said `oh, put me somewhere near the back'.
I'll be lumbering along with the green wave, who leave the starting blocks in the city centre at 11am, before running the 10k course around Old Trafford and back, finishing up just in front of the Beetham Tower.
Finding time to train has been the hardest part of the regime, but I've recently been doing regular runs in excess of five miles, and I feel quite good about the whole thing.
Junk you eat
The best thing about training is that it makes you take a closer look at all of the other things in your life - how much junk you eat, etc - and so I'm actually feeling fitter than I have for a while.
Whether I'll keep up the hard work without the incentive of completing the 10K Bupa Great Manchester Run course remains to be seen, but it's certainly been fun while it lasted.
The Bupa Great Manchester Run is just one of the many world championship events which Manchester will host this year, including Wednesday's Uefa Cup Final and a number of events which have already passed off successfully, including the FINA World Swimming Championships, the UCI Track Cycling World Championships and the Hi-Tec World Squash Championships.
The point of this column has been to prove that ordinary people can also get involved in sport and I think I've succeeded in that at least.
Good luck if you too are running on Sunday. Make sure that you warm up and abstain from drinking too much beer in the next few days.
But most of all, make sure that you enjoy yourself too.
Simon is in training for the Bupa Great Manchester Run - one of the numerous world championship events that form part of Manchester World Sport 08, including the Paralympics World Cup.
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