Four days out from the 45th AJ Bell Great North Run, the elite field is confirmed and both defending champions are back. Alex Mutiso and Sheila Chepkirui, who won last year's men's and women's races, return on Sunday 13 September for the 13.1 miles from Newcastle to South Shields. The Kenyan pair head a field of more than 100 invited elite athletes drawn from the United States, Ethiopia, Kenya, Japan, South Africa and across Europe.
Mutiso returns to a race that has historically rewarded runners willing to commit early. The Great North Run is not a flat course in the way its reputation for fast times suggests: the long drag out of Newcastle, the crossing of the Tyne and the exposed run along the coast to South Shields all shape how the race is run, and the closing miles have undone stronger athletes than they have made. A defending champion who knows the road has a real advantage here.
The women's race looks the harder to call. Chepkirui faces Violah Lagat and Brigid Kosgei, the latter a two-time winner on this course in 2021 and 2022 and the Olympic marathon bronze medallist in 2024. Kosgei's record over the distance means she does not need to be at her sharpest to be a factor, and a three-way contest between athletes with genuine pedigree over 13.1 miles is the most compelling storyline in the elite race.
The wheelchair races carry their own depth. Sean Frame and Mel Woods, who won in 2025, both return to defend, and they will be joined by David Weir and JohnBoy Smith in a men's field that reflects how central Tyneside has become to the British wheelchair racing calendar. The elite wheelchair events are staged as part of the full elite programme rather than as a preliminary, which has become one of the race's more quietly progressive features.
Behind the elites, the scale is what defines the event. Organisers expect 63,000 runners on Sunday, cheered by more than 200,000 spectators along the course, in what is billed as the biggest Great North Run staged. The half marathon has long been the world's largest race at the distance, and the 45th edition arrives at a moment when British road running participation is climbing rather than plateauing, which is not something every legacy mass event can say.