It’s a mild December night, and under the street lamps of The Green, members of one of Aberdeen’s newest running clubs are discussing why Aberdeen doesn’t have an official marathon.
“It would be great to have one,” says Liam Urquhart, who founded The Green Running Club with a friend just under a year ago. “It would just put Aberdeen on the map that bit more.”
“It’s got fantastic routes, right?” says Tim MacCulloch, who works for Shell. “You’ve got that stretch on the beach and you’ve also got a perfect route along the Dee valley. You could really do something.”
So, why doesn’t Aberdeen have a marathon?
Edinburgh has one, as does Inverness.
Even Elgin is getting in on marathon action, as towns and cities increasingly feed a growing trend for outdoor running while at the same time look to give their economies a bump.
In contrast, Aberdeen’s last official 26.2 mile, proper marathon street race was the 1990 Milk Marathon.
Meanwhile, there are more runners than ever in the UK thanks to a lockdown running boom.
Downloads for the NHS Couch to 5K app increased by 92% in 2020 compared to 2019 as exercise options dwindled to lacing up a pair of trainers and heading to the local park.
At the same time, big-name marathons are hugely oversubscribed. The chances of getting a spot on the London marathon through its ballot now stand at a measly one in 10.
And Aberdeen has had its own running explosion, underlined by a proliferation of running clubs like The Green.
Liam started the club in January last year as a communal run every Saturday from the Contour Cafe where he works.
Now, the group meets three times a week, with numbers sometimes swelling to more than 40.
“Even just four or five years ago you just had Metro [an Aberdeen running club for elite-level athletes],” says John Dargie, a member of The Green Running Club. “In terms of community clubs, there weren’t many options. But now you have loads.”
Is the time right for Aberdeen to tap into that demand by hosting its own official race?
Aberdeen’s very own marathon man on why the city needs a street race
“If there’s a will, you can make it happen,” says Aberdeen’s fastest-ever marathon runner Fraser Clyne.
Now 68, Fraser ran his first 26.2 miles race in the 1981 Aberdeen Milk Marathon.
He came a creditable fourth, and it launched a stellar running career that saw him take second at the 1984 US Marathon Championships in Sacramento.
The time he ran that day — 2h 11m 50s — is still the seventh fastest by a Scotsman, and the best by an Aberdonian.
Now, he wants the city’s next generation of runners to have the same home marathon opportunity he had.
“It needs a lot of people to come together with the commitment that we’re going to make this happen,” he says. “If you start looking at the reasons why it can’t happen, it will never happen.”
Fraser is aware of the challenges of getting a marathon up and running. He says one of the reasons the Milk Marathon ended was the struggle of working with local authorities to close roads for the day.
Shorter distances such as the Baker Hughes 10k Road Race and the Great Aberdeen Run’s half-marathon, which both ran in the city up to the pandemic, were easier to organise.
The annual Christmas BrewDog run, a 21-mile race that starts on the Gallowgate and ends at the Ellon brewer’s HQ, is marketed as a fun run rather than a race and doesn’t require closed streets.
For a marathon to be successful, there is also the marketing angle to consider.
“There are so many marathons,” Fraser says. “What would make Aberdeen different?”
On this point, Fraser has an answer. Aberdeen, it turns out, is Scotland’s spiritual home of the marathon.
Aberdeen’s first marathon was more than 100 years ago
“The very first marathon the over now-established distance of 26 miles and 385 yards held in Scotland was from Fyvie Castle to Aberdeen in 1923,” says Fraser, who was the athletics correspondent for the Press and Journal for three decades and remains a keen historian of the sport.
According to Fraser, there were many races before that date in Scotland that claimed to be marathons but were actually over shorter distances such as 15 miles.
None of them matched the official length set at the first modern Olympics in Paris in 1896, which the marathon as we know it was invented for.
This gives Aberdeen an important distinction in Scotland’s long-distance history, which could be used to attract runners.
What’s more, the winner of the Aberdeen race was a Glaswegian called Dunky Wright, who would go on to compete in three Olympics, placing fourth in 1932.
“There is a story there,” says Fraser.
“After that, of course, you’ve got to provide a good event. You’ve got to put on something that people will remember and enjoy.”
The beach, Marischal College… where should the Aberdeen marathon take runners?
Myles Edwards knows just how difficult it would be to organise a marathon in Aberdeen.
The 34-year-old is a former Scottish 1,500m champion and the son of Mel Edwards, the legendary figure behind the Milk Marathon.
And though Myles won’t run his first marathon until later this year, he tried about a decade ago to get one started in Aberdeen.
“I’d organised some smaller races,” says the co-founder of Aberdeen-based charity Gathimba Edwards Foundation. “But the marathon was just a much bigger undertaking.”
He says there was no lack of willingness from the council, but he “hadn’t quite appreciated just the scale of what was involved in terms of cost and time”.
For an Aberdeen marathon to attract runners, explains Myles, it needs a course that takes in the city’s best sights. But that’s where the problems start.
“To make it appealing and to showcase all the great things that Aberdeen has, you want it to take in the likes of Union Street and Marischal College,” he explains.
“You don’t really want it on a route that would be easier, even though that would involve less road closures and therefore less cost.
“So, although there’s a lot of people that would want [a marathon] to happen, I think it’s difficult.
“It would either takes a company with a huge amount of resources or maybe one person, possibly two to dedicate full time hours to it over long period of time.”
Despite this, Myles remains firmly behind the idea of an Aberdeen marathon.
“I think it would be incredible,” he says. “And it would be really well supported.”
The growing number of grassroots running events in Aberdeen
Locked out of large-scale events, Aberdeen’s enterprising running community is finding other ways to organise marathons.
Lauren Livingstone, who owns the city’s Mount coffee shop with partner Jack Sim, took matters into her own hands after a “dismissal” from Aberdeen council for a marathon.
The Mount Marathon took place on August 27 to what Lauren says was an “incredible” response.
More than 75 runners took part, with Mount raising £5,000 for the Scottish Association for Mental Health.
Family, friends and spectators watched and cheered as the runners raced four times around a 10km loop through Seaton Park and along Beach Esplanade.
“We decided to do it as we wanted to raise money for a charity close to our heart,” says Lauren, a keen runner herself – Mount holds its own running club every Thursday night starting from its Upperkirkgate cafe.
“We felt there was a lack of long-distance events in the city and wanted to change that.”
The demand is there… but where is the action?
Back at The Green Running Club, the runners are making their way through the city. The weather is unseasonably mild, and the turnout is good for December.
“If there was a marathon, in your city you’d be 100% more inclined and more motivated to sign yourself up,” 26-year-old Sam Williams as she jogs down to Gallowgate roundabout.
“A lot of the people at this club did the Edinburgh marathon this year but they had to travel a fair distance to do it.”
Behind Sam, John Dargie is running with Joe Perry.
“I’m a proud Aberdonian,” says John. “I know people always put [the city] down, but if you organise things people turn up and do it.
“It’s just a case of being positive.”
What do you think? Should Aberdeen have a marathon? What route could it take? Comment below, or send an email to andy.morton@pressandjournal.co.uk
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