THE reception area of the Hilton Hotel in Gateshead is approximately 50 metres long. Yesterday, it took a man in a fluorescent training top half-an-hour to get from one end of it to the other.

Every couple of yards, he was stopped for a picture, an autograph or a congratulatory chat. Every couple of yards he obliged with a smile that has become one of the enduring images of Britain's glorious sporting summer.

Mo Farah is one of the most high-profile people in the country at the moment, and today will compete in his first race since winning two gold medals at the Olympic Games when he contests the two mile event in the Great North City Games on the Newcastle and Gateshead Quayside.

Yesterday, however, he was simply a resident in a hotel lobby happily rubbing shoulders with anyone who wanted to greet him.

Watch him in action and listen to his post-race interviews, and you always suspect he's a thoroughly decent bloke. After the events of yesterday morning, there are now hundreds of Geordies who can testify to exactly that.

“It's been unbelievable since the Olympics,” said Farah, who claimed gold on successive Saturdays in London with victory in the 5,000m and 10,000m. “ “Everyone's been so nice. They recognise me in the supermarket, when I'm out having a meal, all over. But people are just genuinely nice. How can you say no to somebody when they're asking you for a picture or an autograph nicely? They just want to say well done really and it's been brilliant.”

The Olympics and Paralympics provided so many incredible moments, but for many, Farah's journey was the sporting story of the summer.

A migrant from Somalia at the age of eight, the Londoner was one of the faces of the Games in the year between winning gold at the 2011 World Championships and the opening ceremony in London.

The pressure ahead of the 10,000m final was immense, with Jess Ennis and Greg Rutherford already having claimed a gold medal on the same evening, but Farah provided the perfect climax to 'Super Saturday' when he burst clear on the final lap to claim gold.

Seven days later, and he repeated the feat in the final of the 5,000m, becoming the first Briton to complete the Olympic long-distance double.

The races will be replayed forever, but Farah does not need to see them to remember just what incredible occasions they were.

“Never in my life will I experience anything like that again,” he said. “It's a once in a lifetime thing and I'll remember it when I'm 90 years old. I hope other people will do the same too.

“Super Saturday was special. I still can't quite believe it. Jess won, and I was running around thinking, 'Greg, must be doing well, I wonder what that noise means. Has he won a medal? Has he won a medal?'

“In my head, I was telling myself to get focused again on my race, but it was so difficult. It was brilliant. People were jumping up and down laughing and cheering, and it was just a great atmosphere.

“I'll never forget how loud that stadium was and the number of people shouting my name. I'm a big football fan and it was one of those comparable experiences to when a goal goes in. Everyone jumps around then, but at football, they're not quite shouting the same thing. At the Olympic Stadium, everyone was shouting the same thing and that was special.”

Most people would regard two Olympic gold medals as sufficient for the summer, yet Farah was to experience an even more life-changing double two weeks after the end of the Games.

His wife, Tania, gave birth to twin daughters Aisha and Amani. The world's best long-distance athletes were unable to tire out Farah during the Olympics, but his two baby girls have successfully achieved the feat.

“Compared to winning the Olympics, starting out life with twins is completely different,” he said. “When I'm training, I go up in the mountains and switch off while I run. I work really hard, but having twins is equally as tough.

“I'm in control when I'm training. But the twins can wake up at any time of the day or night, they can poo at any time of the day or night as well. It's completely different, but I'm enjoying it. It's great. All that goes on in my athletics career must come to an end at some point, but my family life will go on and the kids will be there. That's really important to me.”

The demands of fatherhood are the prime reason why Farah has opted not to compete in tomorrow's Bupa Great North Run, an event that was originally intended to mark his half-marathon debut.

His training schedule has understandably lapsed in the last few weeks, forcing him to tackle a two-mile invitational rather than pound 13.1miles on Tyneside 's streets.

He still intends to tackle road running in the future, and there is a chance that the 2016 Olympics will see him in the marathon rather than on the track.

He has four years to make that decision, but remains determined to add a victory in the Great North Run to his list of achievements at some stage.

“I see myself moving towards road running in the future,” he said. “I am getting older, and as I start losing more speed, that's when I'll move in that direction. For now, I'll be sticking on the track, but as soon as I start to feel myself getting slower, I'll move towards the road.

“Races like the Great North Run and the London Marathon, that's something I'm interested in. It would have been nice to have raced here and tested myself in a half-marathon before moving on to a full marathon, but unfortunately that hasn't been possible.”

Today's race will be Farah's last competitive outing of the year, but there is still one more event in which he features that will command a great deal of public attention.

The battle to be crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year is more competitive than ever. So who will be getting Farah's vote?

“It's so hard to pick this year. You've got everyone really. You've got Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins, Jess Ennis, David Weir, Andy Murray...I don't know what's going to happen,” he said.

“We'll never have another summer like this. We cannot do this again. It's been a perfect summer of sport. We've had the Olympics and Paralympics on our doorstep, but then there's also been Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour de France and Andy Murray winning a Grand Slam. Brits just don't do that.

“Mark Cavendish did really well last year, but if any one of this summer's achievements had been done last year, you would have said straight away that they would be winning the award. This year, it's just about impossible to pick. It just shows how far we've come and what sports people have achieved.”