Great Run have introduced the Birmingham marathon, which is a nice addition to the running calendar. I ran it as the sub 4 Pacer in its inaugural year, at attach my full personal account:

https://pickupthepacepaul.com/2017/10/15/birmingham-marathon-2017

The registration and race briefing was simple. The start was a little strange as it started on a race track and there were two waves split an hour apart. I didn’t like this, but with a large field and a two lap course this was definitely a good decision by the organisers. The risk of starting all at the same time would be that the faster runners would hit a bottle neck at the lap turn point, so this was avoided. If they could do a single lap it would be preferable.

The course was a little uninspired but frankly most marathons do get boring in places. The support was fairly consistent and good throughout, water was provided in bottles, and it was s good medal tshirt and race village at the end.

The course was undulating with a horrible final hill. The only negative I can recall though is the baggage was not left secured, you put in a bus yourself so could have walked away with anyone’s bags.

i would definitely do the course again. My family had fun in the chocolate factory during the run and the day before we went to Thomas world. Spot on