By special request - Manchester 10k aka Bupa Great Run

This is not a race that I would normally think of doing. In fact is it a race? Yes, if you are a paid elite athlete but for most of the 28,000 other entries it is a challenge, often for different reasons. As a reward for members of the club marshalling at the event, we get a couple of places gratis - it is normally £38 to enter, which contravenes the wfdbwgua membership rule of not paying more than £1 per mile (or has, that gone up, Ed, maybe to £1 per km?).
Our contact the event, Tony Hesketh, kindly decided to give first refusal to myself and Martyn Bell, based on his misguided view that I do something useful for the club (Martyn has put in much effort recently to motivate the club into winning ways, and results are showing that he is succeeding).
I travelled with Tony, Brenda, her granddaughter, Lauren and occasional Saturday morning UTUPer, Christa Whatmough. They all had a long day as part of the finishing team dashing out the goody bags and directing the 28,000 runners finishing after seven start waves.
Normally a 10k would be a case of turning up and running, not a problem for someone with a few ultras under their belt. However, I had managed to pick up a calf strain 10 days earlier. I had spent the previous weekend at the soul festival in Morecambe where I would have been happy to get an early morning run but found that I had difficulty walking nevermind running. So it was a case of treating the calf with plenty of ice and ibuprofen through the week and just one gentle 4 off-road miler on the Thursday before.
Arriving at 8.30 for a 10;55 start gave me a bit of time to kill so I helped out building the Guide Dogs stand in the Charities Village at G-MEX before heading to the start at about 10.30, warming up in the empty Chinatown Car Park. I think some people were at the startline 40 or more minutes before their starting time - didbn't fancy that so I ended being near the back of the wave. As this was the second fastest of the five mass waves, I presumed this would be a sensible place to start. I thought the majority of runners in the wave would be faster than me. How wrong could I be?  The chip timing and sort of funnel at the start helped for a decent start but after a few hundred metres the problem started. The problem being runners going at slow pace or walking - yes by 2km there were plenty walking, some three abreast, in what is supposed to be a relatively fast wave. I saw someone fall and I had to weave in and out to avoid accidents. I'd hoped to be inside 50 minutes and over the first 5k, I was just ahead of schedule. After that, the slight incline and exertions early on meant although my garmin said I was on schedule I'd run an extra 120 metres so my finishing time was 50:17, putting me in the first 5000 and 75th in the V55 category. I didn't see Chris during the day but saw Stuart Edmondson and Tim Roe (whose wife or girlfriend was running - apologies as don't know the relationship). I was happy enough with the result as it was quite hot but could have been better. I was also very happy that my calf had stood up to the race. Afterwards I had a warm down, chatted more on the Guide Dogs stand and found my way to the finish where Tony, Brenda, Lauren and Christa were doing there stuff.
Advice for anyone running in the future - forget warming up and get near the front. Or do what I believe loads do, lie about your expected finish time. I noticed that had I run in "faster runners" race for fast club runners, there would have still been 10 finishers behind me in the 170 runners. In my wave, my time was about 1250th fast of over 6000 runners.