Marathon Runners & Spectators - how does Manchester compare to London?

[BelindaLouisa]

I mean in terms of atmosphere, support, easiness of the route?

I have a place in London next year and a charity spot is available for a charity both DH and I are close to in the Manchester one. I was wondering how it compares? Does it pale in comparison to London or is it equally brilliant but perhaps in a different way? Or somewhere in between?

DH is keen to do a marathon and I was wondering about offering to pay for his place and a big donation (I realise there are lots of others too, I am just looking at this one as it’s also a biggie for now.)

Thank you!

I would say there’s less support spread around some parts of the course but it’s pretty good in the main areas. It’s not as iconic as London and there’s not the sheer volume of people but it’s better supported than a lot of other regional ones.

I've spectated at the Manchester marathon and it's really hard to get around the various points. Absolutely jam packed on the trams to the point that you can't get on so we found it quite hard to cheer on and ended up staying in the same place. I think it does mean there are gaps where it's quite quiet on the route.

Hmmm, this is interesting. He’s a more serious, and far faster, runner than me but I think he’d love the huge atmosphere you get with London. However, I suppose the quieter bits might be a good chance to get the miles in rather than looking around…?

I’ve run Manchester a couple of times and for support, for sure there is less, but it is well organised on the whole and a good flat race! It’s also important (for me at least) that it doesn’t involve a tonne of money going to opaque administration and profit over helping the districts which they lie about helping. VLM is suss on many levels, so I wouldn’t fork out for a place when the charities won’t benefit as much as a charity would if you run a different one and collect money. But that’s is besides the point.

Manchester is nice. Of note we never found the app for find your runner to work. And that only was problematic with Manchester…

What’s VLM?