A news agency photo team raced ahead of its rivals in a digital world first designed to keep road runners smiling through the miles.

Media history was created by North News and Pictures at the Bupa Great North 10k event, propelling Newcastle to the front of a field of marathon capitals including London, New York and Boston.

And agency picture editor Raoul Dixon had to call on all of his 20 years experience to stop himself being “run ragged” in providing real-time images throughout last Sunday’s race.

The Newcastle-based agency got the “picture exclusive” assigment in a deal to show live ‘in race’ images of runners, displayed on a giant screen in real time by Manchester-based Eventbeat.

Technology front runner at the Great North 10k event with, from left, Richard McFaul of Nova International , Jamie Monckton and Michael Wilde of EventBeat

Raoul, aided by two snappers on the day, said: “The whole point of the exercise was to link the pictures taken to keeping the runners going.

“The images needed to be taken to a very precise crop, and moved extremely quickly so they appeared on the screens with a motivational message as the runner actually ran past.

“When you tackle anything really new like this it is easy to think it will just be another job with maybe one or two special features. But from the start everyone involved realised there would be no time for second thoughts let alone second chances when the race began.

“The images needed to be taken to a very precise crop, and moved extremely quickly so they appeared on the screens with a motivational message as the runner actually ran past.

“It sounds simple enough but I don’t think I have ever been as tired after any assignment, the concentration needed was incredible,” added the picture editor who reckons he’s covered most things in his career from riots to Champions League football.

He said: “However at the end of the day, although it may not the greatest breakthrough in media history ever, it is nice to think that it’s a first, happened in the North East and that we were part of it.”

The ‘Photivate’ system developed by Nova International will now be rolled out for next month’s Bupa Great North Run, which will also celebrate a world-first as it sees its one millionth entrant – again ahead of events in London, New York and Berlin.

North News’s boss Ted Ditchburn, who started the business 30 years ago, said he’d always tried to keep his agency at the forefront of technological innovation.

“We were one of the first agencies leading change in the 1990s, one of the first to move from black-and-white to colour news coverage, and the very first to adopt digital cameras in the mid 1990s, and introduce video in the early years of this century,” he added.

“I’m sure getting the first live screen coverage of runners in real time with messages will develop quickly, as these things tend to, and will soon be a familiar feature of such events.”