The Great South Run returns on Sunday 18 October with the UK Athletics 10-Mile Championships, and Verity Ockenden will be back to defend the women’s elite title she won in 2025. It is a familiar race with a strong British tradition, but this year the focus is firmly on whether Ockenden can repeat a performance that carried her to victory in Portsmouth.
The event, staged on the South Coast and finishing near Southsea Castle in Portsmouth, has long attracted elite British runners. Liz McColgan won it in 1995 and again in 1997, while Eilish McColgan added her name to that list in 2021 when she claimed a third Great South Run victory and set her 10-mile PB of 50:43.
Ockenden returns with a title to defend
Ockenden’s win in 2025 came in 00:56:37, and she now goes back to a race that clearly means a great deal to her. She said the Great South Run has always been special because it connects family history in Portsmouth with her coach Chris Thompson’s legacy at the event, while also marking several turning points in her own career.
That kind of connection matters. Some races are simply dates on a calendar, but for Ockenden this is clearly one with meaning, memory and momentum attached to it. Defending a title is always a different challenge from winning it for the first time, because the pressure changes the moment everyone else starts measuring you against last year’s result.
A race with British pedigree
The Great South Run has also built a reputation as a stage for major British names. Sonia O’Sullivan, Paula Radcliffe and Sir Mo Farah are all part of the event’s wider history, and that gives the 2026 edition a sense of continuity as well as competition.
This year’s field also includes Izzy Fry, who won the British national 10,000 metres title in Loughborough in May 2026, and Andy Butchart, adding more depth to a race that already carries championship significance. With the UK Athletics 10-Mile Championships folded into the event, the margins should matter just as much as the headline names.
Ockenden’s own message is straightforward: she is returning to defend her title and intends to bring her best effort to do it. That is the right mindset for a race like this. The Great South Run rewards runners who can handle the occasion as well as the distance, and on Sunday 18 October the champion will once again be asked to prove she belongs at the front.
