for a large city road marathon is was very smoothly organised and you simply seemed to follow the person in front whether that was at the tram station or the surrounding roads to the start . Bag drop was quick and easy and the area around the start wasn't too crowded. To get to your pens you needed to,know which direction to head in or be with someone who had done it before. The route was designed so that there weren't bottle necks of runners and you didn't have too much of where you run down a long road while the faster runners are on opposite side running back. That is a nice organisational touch as too many races use junk miles to safe on logistics. The aid stations were basic but the lovely people of Manchester made up the shortfall with individual bags of jelly babies for runners or the lovely kids serving hot dogs. There were bands and crowds of people who were genuinely enthusiastic. Having never been to Manchester it was a nice touch to have big signs about where you were and interesting facts.  It was like a running geography marathon, I would never have known danger use came from there. The finish was lovely coming down the straight to crowds of people, and then into the finish area for beer and bag collection. Trams were close by and the station staff were friendly with telling everyone to just get on don't worry about a ticket. You don't need London marathon when you can have Manchester