GNR Alert

[El Gordo]

[RANT]

OK, time to get on my high horse. You're going to hate this Sweder, because you're so darn reasonable about everything, unlike me.

I can't stand what this race has become, and I can't stand Brendan Foster.

I did it once (2003, the same year as Nigel). I was ambivalent at the time, and since then I've learnt to hate it. Last year, for a guaranteed entry, you had to pay £64, including coughing up for the 'membership' scam.

On top of that, Foster's company buys up just about all the accommodation in Newcastle for the entire weekend, years in advance. Then it sells it back to the punters at twice the price. If you don't book accommodation a year in advance, you might as well forget it - or find a B & B in Whitley Bay or a campsite somewhere. If you take more than a couple of hours to run the race (not that it's easy to do much running in a crowd of 50,000), you can look forward to a 2 or 3 hour wait at the Metro back to Newcastle, or sitting in a traffic jam for at least that long to get out of South Shields.

The whole thing is horrible.

I've heard some people say that it's no more hyped than the FLM, but I'd disagree strongly. The FLM is a great race and a great event. Organisation is fantastic. Most of all though, the FLM has integrity. It's essentially a charity, while the GNR is essentially a business masquerading as a charity. That's not a crime, but I just think the profit motive has bloated the event way beyond the comfort level - both physical and moral. The runners have become much less important than Foster's pockets.

[/RANT]

I'm not trying to say you shouldn't do the race. That's your decision of course. Maybe everyone should do it once. If you can get a free place, why not? Personally, I wouldn't want to do it again, and I certainly wouldn't pay to do it.