I originally secured a place in the 2020 London Marathon in the summer of 2019. From that point on, I trained continually until I finally took part in October 2022! Why the massive gap? Well, 2020 and all the absolute shite that made that year one to forget, fucked things up for a lot of people – especially for what’s turned out to be a cold a best. Absolute joke, but enough of that. Let’s rewind and fast forward a bit to fill you in!
With the absolute nonsensical ‘rules’ that were put in place, you know, wear a ridiculous mask, don’t sit next to someone on a bench – if the benches weren’t already covered in ‘Police Line Do Not Cross’ ribbons (jeez what a joke) – and the best one of all, following arrows around a supermarket. I didn’t buy into that crap one bit, so every time something had to be cancelled because of it pissed me off even more.
Anyway, however, I did run the Virtual London Marathon in 2020.
With the event being cancelled, you know, because of the ‘flu’ but rebranded for a year, I was fortunate to be one of the many Guinness World Record breakers in the largest virtual event in history – I was officially part of the ‘Most users to run a remote marathon in 24 hours’! I even have a supercool certificate to prove it. It was also the 40th year of the London Marathon as well so it was a pretty monumental event regardless.
With the entry rolling over to the following year and a fresh intake of charity runners, I opted to postpone until 2022… In case it got cancelled again, you know, for maybe something equally as ridiculous as the precious year! Training since 2019 was after all taking its toll. Again, I took part in the virtual event in 2021 so that the training wouldn’t go to waste. This one wasn’t to be record breaking – but what it did do was allow me to, kinda, get a hattrick of London Marathon medals!
Finally, in October 2022, the event was upon me!
An incredible event that was very well organised. I didn’t set out to grab a PB. All I wanted to do was to soak it all in. Why? It was likely my first and last opportunity with the demand for the event!
I did soak it all on while still challenging myself… To the point where I ended up achieving a PB without realising! Nothing overly impressive – a shade under 5 hours. It was such a cool event because of the density of participants. Usually, on other events, there’s a huge wave of people at the start but this crowd disperses as the miles are clocked up. Not the London Marathon! There were crowds of runners everywhere… All the time! It gave you an extra buzz, in addition to the amazing spectators cheering you on, again, everywhere!
It was a crazy juxtaposition to the ultramarathons I mention in my other blog. Being around people for the whole of the 26.2 miles where you might not see a soul for hours (or miles)!
So pleased I got to take part… Eventually!
However, it would be a one-off, running the official event. The faff and stress that came with it was too much to endure again. Having to collect the race numbers in person the day before, sorting accommodation, leaving the car at the finish line and having to travel to the start, diet thrown out, sleep thrown out. Plus, as you can imagine, with London in the process of being shut down for the event the following day, meant the place was even more rammed than usual. Took hours to do what you could walk in minutes. However, you couldn’t just leave the car somewhere – because they were clearing the streets. It was fucking manic. Bucket list checked off though so that’s something.
