Some Coked Up Brit wrote:
It is relatively historic race, older than the London marathon.
It has been extremely well marketed and it has entered into the national consciousness partly because of that.
It is more important to Northerners in Britain than Southerners (like me). Northerners feel proud of it - you must remember here that Northerners in Britain are like Southerners in the US.
It has a huge number of charity runners and this gives it a great budget to attract the top international talent, despite the course not being a record certified course.
Serious club runners in Britain don't run the GNR however. It is very expensive and tends not to be very well organised even for people in the front corals. (Different from London marathon)
Hold on Sunshine! Are you cockney twat actually calling the Geordies a bunch of retarded rednecks? You are a f***ing idiot and clearly not shy to show it! I bet you would wet yourself only touching one of the tasty Geordie lasses (that's Northern girls for you americans out there).
The GNR is basically the biggest and most prestigous HM in the UK and arguably the world with 52000 entrants this year. It runs through the Northern Town of Newcastle which as every big city road race narrowing the racing route down to the width of a motorway for the masses but I guess even London with it's great money grabbing shit course Marathon has got that problem.
The organizers of the GNR are actually very good and supportive to 'Serious club runners' like myself as we all start with the Elite Boys and therefore get away before the masses for which this whole run is supposed to be a great day out! It's important for many of the 52000 to raise money for charities and fulfill the lifelong dream of once running this great race which was originally setup in 1980 by Brendan Foster. It has to be said that both Brendan Foster and Steve Cram in fact hail from the NE and therefore running has always been a big part of the lifestyle up there.
As for the competitiveness. Well, a race that attracts Haile, Lel & Ritz with the winner last year running 59.32 and the Top 30 all running sub 70mins speaks for itself. Ans as I said it's usualy a great day out and very competitive!
You stupid London asshole!!!