by Larry Eder
The Great North Run is one of my favorite events to visit. I always enjoyed the Great City Games on Saturday and the Great North Run on Sunday. The picture below is one of my favorites with my brother, taken in September 2015, during the Great North Run PR event.
The Great North Run is one of the most important road races in the UK. Produced by the Great Run Company, the entire weekend was a pretty big celebration of athletics. On Saturday, the Great City Games featured sprints, middle distance, pole vault and long jump. There was also a Kids’ run and the Great North Run was held on Sunday.
The Great North Run is a half marathon, and in 2015, it had just over 50,000 runners and walkers. Mo Farah was one of them.
The Great Run Company had a PR event for Mo Farah and Greg Rutherford at the local football club. It was a fun event, and we got to walk on the pitch and meet a few of the players. It was a huge deal for Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah. Greg’s grandfather played for the football club and Mo Farah was speaking of his dream to play football once his athletics days were through.
My brother, Brian, had joined me that weekend to take photographs of the events and help me with our coverage on RunBlogRun. Brian and I co-founded the blog, way back in 2007. Actually, Brian had been speaking to me about a blog since 2005, and we got serious in 2007. Matt Turnbull, the Great Run Company elite coordinator, had invited us to cover the event globally.
I love covering events on the blog and with our social media. Our readers love the audio, video content, photo galleries, and short and long text reads. We had just finished shooting on the soccer pitch when Brian put his camera on the table.
It was at that time we saw Mo Farah gesture to check out Brian’s camera. Brian smiled and showed him the camera. Mo motioned for us to stand together and took a really nice series of photos of Brian and me.
Photographers are, in my belief, born, not made. Anyone can buy a nice camera, but not everyone can figure out a unique impression from a photo of two brothers. Mo Farah did just that. He caught our enjoyment of the event and our closeness.
I was thinking about Mo Farah this week after the big brouhaha over his second-place run in a 10k at the Vitality London 10k run.
I thought his response was honest and an example of self-focus that elite distance runners need to survive. Mo Farah will be on the roads in the near future. As much as many of us want to see him on the track again, he knows his future is in the half marathon and marathon.
We wish him luck and know that Mo Farah is also a talented photographer.
