Day 8 28 April 2026
I went to the gym yesterday and we did a “hero” workout. This meant nothing to me but probably means something to true CrossFit gym goers. It was tough and I felt pretty exhausted by the end. In the group chat, some people were complaining about their legs. I smiled to myself – I must be getting fitter. I was fine! Today I have real reason to regret that smugness. Walking downstairs is a real challenge and bending down to pick up my shoes is torture. Worse still, it is a bike day today, only 10 miles but even so. On top of that I’ve been surreptitiously watching my sister-in-law, Carolyn’s training and realised that she is getting in more hills than me. The bike ride was cold and the wind was against me to begin with. I was going so slowly, although I’d picked a hilly route. But I did it and my legs feel even worse!
Training so far 277 miles, 4492 m of ascent, 27 hours
The first time we went to Newcastle with Alice, the Tyne Bridge was displaying The Great North Run logo, and every time I visited Alice in August and September, that logo was calling out to me. When we were in Newcastle after Alice’s murder, the logo was still there, and it triggered something in my subconscious. By the end of the year, without really understanding how I was going to do it, I had signed up for a place in the Great North run 2017, supporting Women’s Aid.
I think it was an instinctive reaction that by helping some of the many thousands of women who were victims of domestic abuse, I was somehow helping Alice. The press like to portray this as an altruistic gesture, but it felt to me more like atonement. Something to assuage the guilt I felt for not understanding stalking and not being able to prevent Alice’s murder.
I had been a small-time runner for quite a long time, loving the social side of running with others in a club and the challenge of cross country running alone in the dark and the wet. But other than a few ten-kilometre club runs, I usually just ran for 30 minutes and then I was done. The thought of running 21km seemed too much and quite frankly unattainable.
I set up my charity page and posted it to my rarely used Facebook page. The sponsors rolled in. And they kept on rolling. My initial target was £400. I expected that I’d end up paying that myself, to save face. But it soon became apparent that I stood a good chance of meeting the target. The amount I’d have to pay was decreasing. Rapidly! And then I reached that target. So, I set the aspirational target of £1000. This was soon achieved too, as was £2000 and £5000. On the eve of the run the total passed the £10,000 mark. Unbelievable! The sponsors continued to come in, although they slowed to a trickle. But I ended up raising more than £13,000.
The feeling of all these people supporting me was overwhelming and very comforting, but it also built up the anxiety I felt for maybe not managing the run. Some of the training in the early days was brutal. I remember forcing myself out of the car on a viciously wet and windy day to run up a slippery, wet and muddy track. My lungs were screaming from the big rasping breaths that were all I could manage. The more I struggled to breathe, the more I thought about Alice, making me want to cry and the more I wanted to cry, the more I struggled to breathe.
The charity page I used encouraged me to give updates on my training and together with social media posts, I felt I was having a real conversation with the people supporting me. I cannot adequately put into words how much this helped me. I was particularly struck by a comment from an anonymous donor (probably an ex-student) who said “Dr Hills, you once told me that I could do anything I wanted if I put my mind to it, so I know you can do this”. The irony of that student turning the tables on me was both amusing and really powerful and I think of it and am inspired by it every time I feel down. Even now. It was enormously helpful when I was training.
A colleague of mine who was also an ironman triathlete told me that training was just a recipe. Stick to the training plan and it will work. And it did. Until 6 weeks before the run, when I was finishing an idyllic training run across a field of springy turf, next to the sea and under the bluest sky. I glanced across to a stone wall, where a bank of wild thyme was growing. That split second loss of concentration was my downfall as my foot went down unevenly onto a large rock hiding in the grass, there was a snap and my ankle rolled. I waited for that first rush of pain to subside in the hope that it would all be just a minor twinge, but my ankle was already swelling, and I could not put any weight on it.
This was a disaster for the run, but I knew that I had to carry on. I strapped up my ankle, iced it and lay with my foot in the air for the rest of the week. Then I went to a physiotherapist to ask for advice. He told me that there was no way I could do the run, but he did introduce me to sports tape and explained the best way to strap it. I then went back to training on a treadmill, too scared to run on any ground that might be the least bit uneven. By the time I got to the start line, five weeks later, my ankle didn’t feel too bad, although it was still pretty swollen.
I knew the Great North Run was iconic, but I was not prepared for how truly amazing it was. Like Alice, I had come to love the people of Newcastle, and they were out in their droves, lining the entire route, shouting encouragement and providing as many jelly babies and Haribo’s as you could care to eat. I passed (and stopped and chatted to) loads of friends of Alice who were supporting. I loved the bands on every junction; they really helped as I counted off the miles, I loved the many, many fancy-dress outfits; all with their own stories to tell and most of all I loved being part of this amazing event. All the anxieties I’d had about not being able to make it were blown away. I had only one minor worry as my legs felt like they weren’t obeying instructions on that last mile along the seafront when I picked up the pace.
But I made it. I crossed the line in just over two and a half hours. When the girl handed me my medal, it didn’t seem like this was the ten thousandth one she’d done. It felt like I’d won the race. My student was right. I could do this. I’d proved it. What next!
