Great North Run 2014: Date, Route, Course Map, Times, Event Details
The 2014 installment of the Great North Run gets underway on Sunday, as over 50,000 participants take to the northeast of England for a half-marathon.
Starting in Newcastle, the race goes over the Tyne Bridge, through Gateshead and onto the coastal town of South Shields, where competitors are greeted at the finish line by hoards of spectators and a great sense of personal pride.
Live music and on-course refreshments guide the racers around the 13.1 mile circuit, but as always with the Great North Run, elite runners will give the relaxed race a competitive edge.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Date: Sunday, Sept. 7
Start Time: 11:30 a.m. BST
Course Map: (via Bupa Great North Run)
Best of the Best Gather at Great North Run
From those participating in a fun run to others looking for glory, the Great North Run has it all.
Male and female Olympians and Paralympians will battle it out for their respective gold medals in Newcastle, with a familiar face leading the charge in the men’s category.
Mo Farah, who took to British hearts after some stunning performances at London 2012, is among the favourites to win the Great North Run, and he comes into the race in determined mood.
In the 2013 Great North Run, Farah came third behind Kenenisa Bekele and Haile Gebrselassie in one of the most exciting races ever witnessed but is looking to go one better this time around.
Injuries have limited Farah's involvement in 2014, but he told Jim White of the Daily Telegraph that he’s targeting nothing but gold on Sunday:
"I’m in it to win it. That’s what I’m training for: I want to win. It’s been a bit of a struggle. Yeah, it’s been frustrating. You do get injured, it’s part of the sport. But it’s always hard. Because at the level we’re at you just don’t want to miss races. Hopefully now things are looking good again...I love the Great North Run. I like a half marathon, it’s a good solid run. Normally in training we do that sort of distance, I pretty much do 13 miles every day. Well, that’s on an easy day.
"
Without Bekele and Gebrselassie—two titans of long-distance running—to worry about, Farah’s chances of glory have only been enhanced, and kicking into gear for the season on one of its flagship events wouldn’t be the worst way to go about it for the Brit.
Farah certainly comes into the event in the right form to do so, too, having claimed two gold medals in last month's European Championships in Zurich, as noted by MailOnlineSport:
In Switzerland, the 31-year-old showed the kind of form that made him a double Olympic champion, gliding to two relatively comfortable victories.
He then took that form onto home soil in the Sainsbury's Grand Prix event in Birmingham and set a new British record during his time in the Midlands.
The British two-mile record had stood at eight minutes, 13.51 seconds for all of 35 years before Farah's brilliance, smashing it with a time of eight minutes, 7.85 seconds, per John Ashdown of The Guardian.
He's in the kind of form where he looks unbeatable, and that's exactly what he'll aim to be as he works his way to South Shields on Sunday.
While Farah and Co. will be going all out to cross the line first, the majority of the thousands of competitors will enjoy ambling towards the line in comfortable fashion.
That’s what the Great North Run is all about, after all, people from all four corners of the earth getting together for a good cause.
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
