FAQs

The Great North Run starts on the A167 close to Claremont Road. 60,000 runners make their way along the 13.1 mile route to the finish at South Shields after a final mile-long seafront stretch. If you’re a participant, check the Great North Run information guide for your arrival time, arrival route and assembly access for your wave colour.

We would be delighted if you supported our work and signed up as an own place runner. Simply fill in the own place runner registration. You will receive online fundraising materials to use to help raise funds, have a personal fundraising page to support your efforts and be part of our running crew.

Register via the Charity Place link. We have a limited number of places so there is no guarantee that you will receive a place. Once all places are sold, registration will close. Successful runners will have a place but you will still need to redeem your token or link to confirm your place with the Great Run team. This will be sent to you from Great Run and you must complete this to secure your place. Look out for more info in your welcome emails. 

Places are transferable up until the 31 May 2026. Places are non-refundable but you are able to transfer your place to another runner up to the 31 May 2026.

In the case of a last minute injury you would be able to apply to defer your place via Great Run.

Great Run will send the race pack (for example your race number and timing chip) two weeks before the event. Our RNLI running vest will be sent out towards the end of July. The training t-shirt will be sent out soon after you sign up.

Once you sign up, your fundraising page will be automatically created, and all donations collected on your page will come directly to the RNLI. You can add your own profile picture and tell us why you’re taking on the Great North Run. You can then share your page with friends and family so they can donate to support you and the RNLI’s volunteer lifesavers.

If you receive any cash donations, you can bank them yourself and transfer the amount to your online fundraising page. Every contribution makes a real, lifesaving difference.

The money you raise will help our lifesavers to save every one they can, so we are asking those with a charity place to raise a minimum of £500. This is due to the limited number of places we have available to offer. Of course if you have your own place and are running for the RNLI, we welcome whatever you can raise.

Yes, the amount shown on your online fundraising page includes Gift Aid.

You can track your distance and steps using several different apps, including Fitbit or Garmin.

Your profile page includes your personal distance tally so you can track your distance towards your target. This is a great way to keep your friends updated on your workouts!

If you track your workouts with Fitbit or Garmin, your distances will automatically add to your tally.

Follow these steps to track your distance automatically:

1. Download the Fitbit or Garmin app and set up your account
2. Log in to your RNLI Great North Run account.
3. Under the heading Connect your preferred Fitness app, click your chosen app.
4. Follow the prompts to connect your account.
5. When you next work out, select start your workout in the app on your phone. Once you end your workout, save your workout and your distance will be published to the tally on your page the following day.

If you have synced your app already but it is not working, please log in and reconnect it.

Fitbit: You must start an activity and save it. If no activity is logged, then your cumulative activity will sync at the end of the day. If you are having issues, try syncing through BOTH your Fitbit and the Fitbit app on your smartphone.

Garmin: You must start your workout, stop your workout and then SAVE your workout.

Your tally will be updated each day with the previous day’s distances.

Manually adding activity

Remember, you can manually add your exercise to the tally in the My Fitness Activity tab within your logged in dashboard. This is a great option if you’re using a pedometer or a different way of tracking your distances, including Strava or MapMyFitness.

Follow these steps to manually add your activity:

1. Log in to your account and select My Fitness Activity.
2. Under Add activity, enter the required fields. Depending on the challenge this may be steps, distance and/duration.
3. The logged activity will now appear on your fundraising page!

The Great North Run requires participants to be aged 17 or over on the day of the event to enter the half marathon.

Please email us at gnr@rnli.org.uk and one of the team will be able to help.