People’s Marathon: first run in 1980, the West Midlands event was specifically aimed at non-elite runners
PICTURES: MARK SHEARMAN
MOST people assume the birth of mass-participation road running in the UK came with the arrival of the London Marathon and Great North Run in 1981. But the previous year there was a forerunner to these events with the People’s Marathon in the Birmingham area.
Organised by local road running enthusiast John Walker, it featured 750 runners, rising to almost 2000 in the second year and 4000 after four years and was particularly aimed at fun runners.
AW’s report of the inaugural event featured a spot-on prediction by the magazine’s editor Mel Watman. “In years to come,” he wrote, “when marathon fields several thousand strong will be commonplace in Britain, it will be seen that the event which triggered off the mass long-distance running movement in this country was the People’s Marathon.”
The event took place in the Solihull and Chelmsley Wood part of the West Midlands and took in a stretch of the M42 motorway, which was still being developed at the time.