Northern sole: Manchester’s bid to be the next big marathon

It will not just be London’s tube lines enduring an unusually busy Sunday morning, but Manchester’s trams, too. On April 27, for the first time ever, the cities’ respective marathons – the UK’s two highest-participation 26.2-mile races – will take place concurrently, meaning that, as 56,000 runners battle safety pins in Blackheath, 36,000 more will tie trainers on Wharfside Way.

The London Marathon is a running major, with 840,000 would-be participants entering the annual ballot. Completion moves racers a step towards the Six Star Medal, a running honour awarded to those also finishing the Tokyo, Boston, Berlin, Chicago and New York City events.

The Manchester Marathon is not in that bracket. At least not yet. But it continues to grow and adapt as part of its journey of improvement. A record number of participants will start this year’s race, although Andrew Smith, chief executive officer of organising company A.S.O UK, emphasises evolution, not revolution, is the priority.

“A big passion project of mine is to really push the Manchester Marathon and realise its potential,” Smith said. “But we’re doing it sensibly, increasing the number of participants incrementally. 4,000 each year gives us sensible growth – you’ve got to think about the runner experience.”

Those runners will begin between the city’s two Old Trafford venues – the homes of Manchester United and Lancashire County Cricket Club – before passing through Stretford, Sale, Timperley and Altrincham. Next, they weave back into the city centre, but, whereas previously they ended up at near enough the same spot, that is no longer the case.

“We’ve got a new finish on Oxford Road this year,” Smith said. “It’s close to St Peter’s Square near the centre and the transport hubs, the hotels and restaurants. That means we can take more runners. If people think of London, New York – the biggest marathons in the world – they tend to have very separate starts and finishes.”

Also at the forefront of organisers’ minds are the spectators, with more than 100,000 expected to cheer runners on. That makes the marathon, despite the presence of two Premier League football teams and the annual Manchester Pride event, the city’s biggest weekend of the year.

Long-distance runners have pounded Manchester’s streets intermittently since 1908. That race was a 20-miler, with the now-established marathon distance first used a year later. There have been various fallow periods over the decades, but – barring Covid postponements in 2020 and 2021 – the modern version has been held annually since 2012.

Simon Walkden is one of a handful of ever-presents, a group of people who have run in every Manchester Marathon, and admits that 2012 was a “horrendous” experience. “The weather was shocking. The organisation was shocking,” he said. “To be honest, most of my friends didn’t go back. I did it because it was convenient, and you couldn’t get a place in London.”

Plenty did not possess Walkden’s patience, including many of the 24,000 who in 2016 were told that the course for the previous three years had been 380 metres short of official marathon distance. No joke for those using it to gain qualifying times for other events such as the Boston Marathon. Walkden was “too stubborn” to stop and says everything is much improved now.

Manchester has several appeals for participants. There is, at least currently, no ballot for entry, while the route being among Europe’s flattest makes it attractive both for debutants and those chasing a personal best. And then there is the intimacy.

“We’re slightly more about the people, the stories and the local charities, rather than the TV coverage and the elite athletes,” Smith explains. Among the charities officially supported are the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity and the Christie Charity, while £1 from each entry fee goes to the Trafford Active Fund, which helps fund local sports-based initiatives.

One of the people Smith refers to is Yahya Pandor, a first-timer in 2024 who set a world record by being the first blind runner to complete a marathon completely untethered to their guide.

Having been diagnosed with macular degeneration, Pandor lost his sight during the pandemic. Running became a means of showing that “barriers and limitations” can be overcome. “It was about proving to myself that, while my sight loss has been difficult, I’m fundamentally still me as a person, and that person always tries to be better, to do better, to challenge myself,” he said.

Pandor chose Manchester for its lack of inclines and because his sister was studying locally. Remarkably, he only met his guide on race morning and the pair spoke just a couple of times on the phone beforehand. Pandor praises the organisers for being happy to support his world record attempt.

“They allowed me to start at the front of my wave and publicised that I was doing it. That meant other runners knew what was happening,” he said.

“There were no quiet parts of the course, even when we were outside of the city centre. To be cheered on both by the crowds and your fellow runners was incredible.”

Pandor’s experience is music to Smith’s ears. “Ultimately, the success of the marathon is about its people and the communities,” he says.

“Manchester does that brilliantly. Kids and adults will hold up boards and try to spur people on.

“There’s no reason why it technically can’t be as big as some of the biggest marathons in the world, but we want to make sure that we keep the spirit of Manchester and the authenticity of the event, too.”

Photograph: Windmill Images/Alamy