Wellness Wonders delves into the stories and innovations driving the UK’s thriving landscape of health, wellbeing, fitness, and nutrition. Join City A.M. as we meet the visionary minds and passionate entrepreneurs behind leading brands and the impact they’re making on the pursuit of wellness.
For this feature, we sit down with Andrew Smith, who is the CEO of Human Race the UK’s leading mass participation events company. His team put on over 30 events each year in triathlon, cycling, running, duathlon and open water swimming across the UK and afar, including the Adidas Manchester Marathon.
What’s behind the Human Race’s over 30 years of success?
The Human Race staff have been the cornerstone of our success. Within our culture, it’s then been about adapting and improving our events, trying – and sometimes failing, but always learning – and moving forward.
In more recent years, following ASO’s purchase of Human Race, we have been able to leverage their position as the world’s biggest mass participation company to our advantage.
How does the Adidas Manchester Marathon keep growing?
There are three core reasons behind the continued growth of the adidas Manchester Marathon. Firstly, we have a brilliant team that really cares and is committed to growing the event.
Secondly, we work with supportive local authorities that want to help with road closure times or space to increase capacity. And finally, the event takes place in a stunning and ambitious city both from a sporting and an economic point of view, drawing in people who want to make an amazing weekend with lasting memories.
What’s driving the demand for this year’s event?
We had a hugely successful 2023 event with the most amazing feedback and we then listened to our participants to keep improving the product and experience which year on year builds a loyal customer base who now come to us first before considering any other marathon.
We have described the event as fast and friendly, and all our post-event feedback supports this statement.
How do you ensure inclusivity and accessibility?
Firstly, from the entry point of view, we try to ensure that everyone who wants to run the marathon can. So many marathons have ballots or to guarantee entry you have to run quick times or raise a certain amount for charity, which can be barriers.
We have a far more open and inclusive approach. We take care to make sure the registration process itself, through language and options, is inclusive and then, in the build-up to the event and on the day itself, we work with local authorities to ensure the touch points, language, and facilities are set up to be inclusive and accessible.
How are you leveraging technology for better experiences?
We should acknowledge that partners like Adidas have developed shoe technology that has enabled people to run more marathons. The technology angle we have focused on and can control ourselves links to the registration process.
As an example, we give people like our Green Runners options so they can decide if they want to forgo their medal or T-shirt in order to contribute to a cause they believe in.
Meanwhile, we have been improving our runner tracking to give the spectators, who want to offer their support to friends and family taking part in any way they can, better experiences.
What are the most memorable moments from past events?
It was incredibly exciting to announce the city centre addition to the route in 2021, which created vibrant supporter hotspots in firm favourite sections such as Deansgate. In 2022, England Athletics selected us to host the England Commonwealth Games qualifiers, which saw over 60 elite athletes competing for a spot at Birmingham 2022.
It was great to see Becky Briggs enjoy a huge breakthrough in setting the existing women’s course record (2:29:06) at this event, while Johnny Mellor ran close to a lifetime best in 2:10:46 (the current men’s course record).
Some other standout moments over the years include Patrick Barden and Claire Lomas who completed the course over one week and nine days respectively, as well as celebrating our biggest fundraising year of £2.9 million at last year’s event (we’re on track to reach 3.5 million this year!).