London calling! The London Marathon

London, United Kingdom. 26th of April 2015.

We ran the London Marathon in 2015, our first Marathon Major, while we were living in this great city, and were able to enjoy it from a local’s perspective.

TLDR

• I just want to run! Take me to RACE.
• I have 1 minute. Take me to USEFUL INFORMATION.
• Running is my excuse for eating. Take me to CARBOLOADING.
• I want to know what to read in the plane. Take me to ONE BOOK.

Our Marathon Majors journey started with and in London.

I had always wanted to run a marathon, and more specifically the New York one (see here). But while working in London, I started to understand all the signficance (and hype) of the 🌟 World Marathon Majors 🌟 and I decided we would attempt to complete the journey.

Getting into the Marathon

There are several ways to get into the London Marathon:

• The first one, if you are fast, it’s qualifying for a “Good for Age” entry. “Good for Age” are a real thing amongst the runners community, and I remember endless discussions with work colleagues whether or not it was worth training and picking a flat marathon to qualify for London. Here’s a list of 10 super fast marathons if you want to pursue this option…
• The second one is the traditional “ballot“, and every year I still see posts with the “I am in!”🤩 or “No luck this year” 😥 from my colleagues. Here is a complete section in the web about how the “ballot” works: “The ballot, explained”.
• The third one is what we did: through charity. I am super happy with our choice, the Donkey Sanctuary, and that is why I have dedicated a chapter to it, see below:

Running for the Donkeys!

We picked the “Donkey Sanctuary“. It’s a non profit organisation that “transforms the lives of donkeys in need worldwide by fostering greater understanding, collaboration and support, and by promoting lasting, mutually life-enhancing relationships”.

You can adopt a donkey here!

Living the Marathon as a local

Before we ran, we went to see the marathon in several occasions and cheered on the runners, like this ginger runner much faster than me 😜:

In 2014 we were even lucky enough to see the local idol Mo Farah going super fast and took a picture of “Mo flying”:

We were living in a tall building with views on the course, so I remember watching the slowest runners, in the middle of the afternoon, going around a roundabout while we were quietly sitting in the sofa. That’s an important fact about London: it is a marathon very permitting with slow runners.

Also, being “Londoners”, we had a bunch of friends cheering for us (some with customised signs 😍😍😍) and coming to celebrate with us after the race… in a pub, of course. In true British style!

For the pub, we picked the excellent bar in the London’s Museum of Docklands, a museum which we visited very often as it was close to our home. In a way, it was our ‘local pub’. And of course… “yo ho ho!” we celebrated with “a bottle of rum“!

📅 The Marathon Expo 🎽

The Marathon Expo took place in the ExCeL Convention Center, which was actually also pretty close to our home.

So, dressed with our “Run for the Donkeys” tshirts, we went walking to the centre. However, we were pretty cautious not to overdo it and get our legs tired, and we came back home quickly.

📓 Runner's Tip: Be careful with walking the day before the race: only because you are not running does not mean that you will not get your legs too tired. 

In the Expo there was a big wall where runners would write and draw messages, and we did so:

We also met up with some fellow runners for the Sanctuary, and exhanged advices:

We had our BIBs and our costumary Teddy Bear, so we were ready!

🍜 Carboloading 🍝

London has one of the most diverse and good offers… in the world! But of course, for carboloading, I can recommend our local Italian restaurant where we would eat very often: “Il Bianco”, in Canary Wharf.

Their pasta dishes are exactly what you need before a marathon, my favourite being their “tagliolini con funghi, pollo and crema” 🤤

Here is a list of the “16 best Italian restaurants in London” by Timeout, a classic. Prepare to eat well but be warned: London can be a hell of an expensive city!

One quintaessentially brittish experience I highly recommend is the “Tea at the Ritz“. Specially if you want to spend a few hours in an atmosphere very different than that of the “running crowd”.

Again, a warning! It is definitely not cheap!!! Afternoon Tea starts at … 75$ per person 🥺. It’s worth it, though. If you are visiting London, it’s a must to enjoy their famous selection of more than 20 types of tea, and their fine sandwiches, scones with Cornish clotted cream and strawberry preserve and all kind of pastries and teacakes.

You get to dress up and enjoy their ‘replenished at request’ offer, that is: the fine Brittish version of a “all you can eat”.

🏃‍♀️ The Marathon🏃‍♂️

The Start

You start in Greenwich Park, south of the Thames.

The park is big and wide, to allow for the thousands of runners, and is divided in many “starts” depending on your estimated time. All is super well organised. We were in “Red Start”:

The Course

The Course, which has almost not changed in years, allows you to run around the most famous landmarks in the city, including (in order):

• The Cutty Sark (km 10)
• Tower Bridge (km 20-21)

Here’s me in the Tower Bridge, which is approximately the middle of the course:

• Canary Wharf (km 30)
• Big Ben and Houses of Parliament (km 41)
• Buckingham Palace (km 42)

The Last 10 Kms

I was too quick in the first half, and I paid the price afterwards. After having left Roger behind at around kilometer 19, I maintained a pace of around 5:10-5:15 minutes per Km for the next 10, which was a tad too quick.

I barely remember the last 7K, I was so exhausted that I coud only ‘just go on’. It is, so far, the only marathon in which I hit the “wall”. And, trust me, I am not looking forward to repeating the experience.

Here’s a good article about what the wall is. Long story short, the wall happens when “your body’s glycogen stores become depleted, combined with the normal levels of fatigue that occur during an endurance event”.

The days after, I discussed my final struggle with fellow runners of the marathon, and they explained some of their experiences in the dreaded last 10K:

One explained that the 2013 edition was particuarly hot and many (I mean, many!) runners passed out during the final miles. Another one explained he hit the wall too, and the lact of sugar made his brain play silly jokes, so when he was approaching the finish line, he was nearly hallucinating. Space plates included, Ed Wood style 😱😱

📓 Runner's tip: Never understimate how hard it is to hit the wall. So: do not start too strong. PACE-YOURSELF. And hydrate and use energetic gels!! Here's another article with advice on how not to hit it.

The Finish Line

The first marathon was a highlight in running history as two winners crossed the finish line hand-in-hand, and this was sported in our medals (2015’s ones) and the marathon finisher’s shirts.

Read here about London Marathon’s history.

There were 6,255 finishers – led home by American Dick Beardsley and Norwegian Inge Simonsen, who crossed the Finish Line hand-in-hand on a rain-swept Constitution Hill. The duo recorded a time of two hours, 11 minutes and 48 seconds while creating a friendship that has lasted a lifetime

So, to celebrate that in 2015 it was the 35th anniversary, not only the medals would sport the feat, but the organisation asked all runners to hold hands when entering the finish line.

Obviouslly, most of the runers didn’t, being too exhausted or exilarated (or both) to remember, but a random stranger (we only know we was called “Oli”) did, and held Roger’s hand… 🤣🤣

🏆 London Marathon (42K). First edition: 1981.

🌐 Website: https://www.tcslondonmarathon.com/

🏃 Number of runners: Around 48,000.

🗓️ Last Sunday of April in London, UK – Europe.

👟 Urban: bring shoes for asphalt.

✅ Super cool atmosphere, you get to enjoy that special way Brits have to put on a show.

✅ Perfect organization, and one of the Abbott Marathon Majors.

❌Quite difficult to get in!

This was the map for 2015, including an elevation profile and even a pace guide 🤗

“Capital”, by John Lancaster

Although I was very tempted to choose one of Charles Dickens’ books, I finally chose John Lancaster’s “Capital” because I find it to be a very realistic, and also light-hearted, tale of modern London. And describes different realities from inmigrants who came to this great city; me having been one of them for a number of years.