Making the Brighton Marathon Weekend for everyone

The Brighton Marathon Weekend aims to be an event that offers something for everyone by being engaging, welcoming and inclusive.

To meet these aims at the 2024 Brighton Marathon Weekend, new initiatives and facilities have been introduced to all three events (Brighton Miles, BM10K, and Brighton Marathon) with further additions planned for 2025.

New initiatives introduced:

For the first time ever, the mile event on Saturday 6 April in Preston Park, which was recently renamed and relaunched as Brighton Miles, will be open to everyone to take part.  

Previously only children and young people were able to take on the one-mile course, but for 2024 we have introduced family miles, an adult-only mile, and some community-specific and gender-specific miles to give everyone the chance to take on a mile in a way that suits them.  

As part of this initiative, a Walk and Talk mile has been introduced to make the mile distance less daunting, and a Welcome Wave has been introduced which specifically caters for any participants with disabilities and participants who are neurodivergent.

A Women and Girls wave for all ages, and girls-only age-specific miles have also been added following feedback from community members at our other events. The aim is to help us attract more women and girls to running events, which are often dominated by men and boys.

A Wheelchair Wave has also been added to the beginning of the 2024 Brighton Marathon, giving people with racing chairs a chance to take on the course. Anyone wanting to take on the route in a day chair is still able to take part in the mass waves.

What facilities are available:

A number of improvements have also been made to facilities across the Brighton Miles, BM10K and Brighton Marathon, to make the events more accessible and welcoming to everyone.

Preston Park, both on Saturday for Brighton Miles and Sunday for the Brighton Marathon Start, and Hove Lawns on Sunday, will benefit from the introduction of a family support area. Here, people will be able to bring their young children to breastfeed, feed, change them, pump and give families some quiet time.

There will also be a prayer tent and reflection space at Preston Park on both days, and at Hove Lawns on Sunday, which participants are welcome to use. This is a multi-faith area for anyone who wants to pray and will allow people a quiet space to reflect or calm themselves if they struggle with sensory overload.  

Over the 2024 Brighton Marathon Weekend, the Information Points at both Preston Park and Hove Lawns will be stocked with sanitary products, which will also be available at the end of every water station on the routes for the BM10K and Brighton Marathon. Signage on the routes will show participants where they can pick up pads and tampons from staff and volunteers.

We have also looked at our toilet provision, and alongside toilets and male urinals at the Start and Finish of the Brighton Marathon and BM10K, there will also be female urinals at the Brighton Marathon Start to limit queues for toilets. At every toilet location for all three events there will also be accessible toilets. These are there for anyone with a disability – visible or not – and anyone needing priority access to toilets (for example, those with Crohn’s disease).

Participants with disabilities and participants who are neurodivergent will also be able to get support on the marathon route at the Disability Welfare Hub, located at mile 11. The staffed tent will contain noise-cancelling headphones and is a space for participants to rest.

Spectators will also be catered for, with three accessible viewing points available on the marathon route so any wheelchair users or supporters with additional needs have a way to cheer and support their runners.

Future projects

We’re passionate about making the Brighton Marathon Weekend as welcoming to everyone as it can be. The initiatives we’ve implemented for the 2024 events are just the start, and we’re already looking to 2025 and how we can become even more inclusive.