Andy Burnham Becomes the First Serving Prime Minister to Run the Great North Run

Andy Burnham ran the Great North Run in 1:57:34 on Sunday, a shade under nine minutes a mile, and became the first serving British prime minister to race it.

Prime ministers have been to the Great North Run before, but only ever to send it off. Tony Blair started the 2008 edition, by which point he had been out of Downing Street a year, and this year the job went to Dan Burn, the Newcastle United captain. Burnham was in the field instead, in a pink Changing Lives shirt with number 10 pinned to it.

“It was the best Great North Run I’ve done, I’ve done a few but that one tops it,” he told the Shields Gazette at the finish.

Burnham is no stranger to toeing the line. He ran the Boston Marathon in April 2019 for charities set up by families of the people killed in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, with one marathon already behind him and no intention of a third. “I’ve done one marathon before and can say without hesitation that this will definitely be my last,” he told Greater Manchester’s combined authority beforehand, putting that first finish at four hours 28 minutes.

Two years later he was back on Tyneside with bib no. 1 at the 40th Great North Run, handed to him by Sir Brendan Foster, the Olympic 10,000m bronze medalist who founded the race in 1981. That one was for Rob Burrow’s £5 million appeal to build a motor neurone disease center in Leeds.

But this Sunday’s run was for Changing Lives, which started on Tyneside as the Cyrenians, took its present name in 2013 and now works across the North East, Yorkshire, Merseyside and the Midlands. Burnham visited one of its Newcastle projects, Alex’s Place, with housing secretary Angela Rayner on Aug. 19, and has been giving the charity a slice of his salary as prime minister, beginning with 15 percent of his first month.

“Tackling homelessness is a moral mission for me,” he said in a statement before the race. “It’s why I promised to end rough sleeping on my first day as PM, and why I’m proud to pull on a Changing Lives shirt today.”

He also had plenty of company. The 63,000 who entered made this the biggest Great North Run yet, against the 12,264 who turned out for Foster’s first one on June 28, 1981, and Guinness World Records still has the race down as the largest half-marathon ever staged, on the 41,615 who finished in 2014. Organizers reckon it has raised more than £450 million for charity since 1981.

At the front, Zouhair Talbi won the men’s race in 59:47, taking the title off the defending champion Alex Mutiso by 14 seconds and breaking the hour for the first time. Talbi was born in Morocco and has been a United States citizen since last year, though he cannot represent the country at a championship until August 2027. He ran 2:03:45 at Boston in April, the fastest an American man has covered that course, and arrived on Tyneside with a half-marathon best of 1:01:08, so Sunday took 1:21 off it. Yohei Ikeda took third in 1:00:40.

Brigid Kosgei won the women’s race in 1:06:15, a second Great North Run to go with her 2019 win, when she ran the 1:04:28 that still stands as the course record. Sheila Chepkirui, the defending champion, came second in 1:08:19, and Melknat Wudu third in 1:09:37. Eilish McColgan did not get far. Back racing after the toe stress fracture she picked up at the London Marathon in April, she pulled up early with a foot injury and did not finish. David Weir won the men’s wheelchair race in 43:06, his 10th Great North Run title, and Melanie Woods the women’s in 50:19.