The Hull Marathon 2015 : What Will You Be?

The Hull Marathon 2015 was launched last week after months of planning and consultation with members of the local running community, including members of Beverley Athletic Club.

Wolds Events, a sports events company based in East Yorkshire, is organising the marathon and is aiming to deliver a quality event.  Phil Haskins of Wolds Events said:  “Our aim is to make it a top class event which the city and whole area can be proud of and which runners can get excited about.”

Beverley AC chairman, Rob Reid has attended several consultation meetings with the team from Wolds Events, giving them the benefit of his experience organising the hugely successful Beverley 10k.  He also expects the club to be able to offer further practical help.  He explained:  “The key help will be the marshalling on the day” and added “We can encourage members to help and we can extend the appeal for help from the wider community.”

Around 600 volunteers will be needed to ensure the smooth running of the event on 13 September and within hours of the Hull Marathon website going live people were signing up to act as Marathon Makers.  Even more impressive is the number of runners who’ve signed up to run already – more than 200 at the time of writing.  Amongst the runners are several members of Beverley AC.

Chris Dunn is an experienced marathon runner with 13 London marathons to his credit.   Although a longtime member of Beverley AC he lives in Hull and entered the Hull Marathon “because it’s in Hull, the city I live in and a city I’m proud to live in.”  He is impressed with the route and is hoping to complete the course in less than 4 hours 15 minutes.

Fellow Beverley AC member James Durham ran his first marathon in York just a few weeks ago.  He enjoyed the great sense of achievement of being able to run 26.2 miles and the improvement in his fitness that resulted from the training.  He entered the Hull Marathon because it’s a local event and he likes the flat, fast route.  Having finished in 4 hours 13 minutes in York he will be aiming to break four hours in Hull.

Both men offer the same advice to first time marathon runners – just go out and enjoy it.  James said: “Forget about trying to run it as fast as you can.  Practice at a comfortable pace to get in the miles and allow your body to become accustomed to running for 4 hours.”

With the nearest marathons in the Beverley area being in York and Mablethorpe there is a big advantage for local runners in being able to run a marathon on their doorstep, cheered on by family and friends.

For those not up to running a full marathon there will also be a relay race for teams of four.  It is expected that this option will prove very popular and may encourage participants to train for the full distance in future years.

The Hull Marathon 2015.  What will you be?  Runner?  Marathon Maker?  Spectator?

For more information got to www.thehullmarathon.co.uk

By Kay Farrow