The Great North Run

[David Guiza]

So I got a charity place for The Great North Run next month through Cystic Fibrosis, and have left the hotel for the night before extremely late (mainly through forgetfulness). I'm now seeing that every hotel is either sold out or a highly inflated price of about 400% increase.

 

So I have a couple of questions:-

 

1) Has anybody done it before, how do you find it and what travel arrangements did you make?

2) Any suggestions as to somewhere that's commutable for the morning, think i'll need to be there around 09:15am, although it doesn't start until around 10:30/40am.

 

Missing the Villa game for this!

[Jimothy]

So I got a charity place for The Great North Run next month through Cystic Fibrosis, and have left the hotel for the night before extremely late (mainly through forgetfulness). I'm now seeing that every hotel is either sold out or a highly inflated price of about 400% increase.

 

So I have a couple of questions:-

 

1) Has anybody done it before, how do you find it and what travel arrangements did you make?

2) Any suggestions as to somewhere that's commutable for the morning, think i'll need to be there around 09:15am, although it doesn't start until around 10:30/40am.

 

Missing the Villa game for this!

 

Never done it myself. but a bloke who worked with my Mum did the run every year for a good 20 years. He didn't get a hotel one year and slept in the car.

[Rob1742]

Right then, assuming places like The Roker Hotel and The Marriott at Seaburn are fully booked?

The Roker will be cheap, but these two are worth checking if you have only checked the Newcastle area.

Assuming you have checked out Newcastle, then try Durham. Probably three quarters of an hour away maximum.

Long shot if Durham is booked, stop at Chapters in Stokesley. Probably an hour away, so a bit of an early start, but a fairly nice little town and far enough away for them not to increase prices.

Pretty sure you will get sorted with some of those options.

Or try Seaham Hall. Costs a fortune, but a great hotel. The owners landed their helicopter there when we stopped there for the Sunderland game.

[Bluefoxtim]

I've done it 4 times. The last time i was on my own so I decided to drive there and back on the same day

Left at about 4am and drove up to South Shields, had a porridge pot in the car, jumped on the metro, did the run in 1 hour and 20 mins and then drove back to Leicester and went out to a family bbq.

[Vicki Vixen]

Get to the start very early if you want to run a half decent time. Otherwise you'll be dodging joggers for at least the first 3 miles.

For hotels, try to find somewhere on the metro network, the further out of the city centre the better since the metros tend to get full quickly. I did it once and had to wait for about 6 metros to pass through before I could board one.

Good luck. It's a fun race once you get going but not really my thing anymore, I'm more into the smaller races now where you can just show up and run without all the spectacle and build up that comes with the bigger races.