What does? The London Marathon.
It was back in 1998 when I first came to London to run the capital’s marathon. I have returned regularly every few years ever since, this year being my 7th time. I have watched both the landscape and the marathon evolve over the last 2 decades.
The marathon organisation has always been good but now it is something massive and extremely impressive. Every detail is taken care of for the runners both at the Expo and before, during and after the race which I think is an amazing feat of organisation considering 36,000 runners are being cared for.
The skyline has also changed, we now have a Gherkin, a Shard and the iconic London Eye but for the runners of the marathon probably the greatest change over the 2 decades is Docklands, now known as Canary Wharf. The first time I came I remember Docklands was a waste land and a building site, quite ugly, uninteresting and with hardly any crowds there to support the runners. Over the years as the skyscrapers have gone up and so has the number of spectators!
This year Canary Wharf was full of stunning tall glass faced skyscrapers and packed with spectators along the marathon route.
The early stages of this year’s marathon were rather eventful for me. For the first time ever I entered by qualifying for a “Good for Age” place which meant I got the chance to start from the smaller green start. This start was still on Blackheath and still had the same amazing atmosphere as the other starts but enabled us faster runners the chance to get over the start line in seconds instead of minutes. I was expecting this start to be less congested, faster and flow better. It was certainly faster and probably slightly less congested but with everyone trying to get off to a fast pace the jostling for room to run made it quite a dangerous place to be. I saw one lady fall and several others nearly land on her resembling something from the start of a Formula 1 race.
At 4.7 miles the initial congestion has subsided, the road was still packed with runners but at least there was a small amount of space between us so we could run at a steady pace. Most of the time you couldn’t see the ground in front of you as there was too many runners immediately in front of you. This caused me a problem as I didn’t see a plastic water bottle, stood on it and went over on my ankle. It was very painful and had me hopping for several hundred yards before it started to settle down. I couldn’t believe it, such a short distance into the race, luckily for me the pain slowly died away over the next mile and it didn’t affect the rest of my race.
My mind was taken off my ankle at 5.2 miles as I went under a large concrete underpass. This is one of my favourite points along the course and it certainly isn’t for the scenery. It is for the wonderful large band made up solely of drummers with some seriously large drums. Their sounds echoed all around the underpass enhancing the sound like rhythmic thunder.
At 5.7 miles I caught up a runner, his face seemed ever so familiar but I could place him. Then I heard members of the crowd cheering him, “Come on Michael!” It was Michael Owen, “Oh, hello” popped out of my mouth as I passed him. Nice feeling to beat an ex-premiership footballer.
At about 10 miles I bumped into a Runner from Swinton Running club, a local club from back up in Manchester, we introduced ourselves, nice to meet Paul for the first time. We ran together for a while taking in the London sights, in particular the famous Tower Bridge at about 12 miles. There aren’t any bands here but they are not needed as the volume of the crowd is electric, it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, absolutely fantastic!
The entertainment is wonderfully varied around the London marathon course, from the drums mentioned earlier to brass bands, rock bands to DJ’s playing dance music or simply to people whose homes line the route, with speakers hanging out of their windows. There are also dancers and cheer leaders. Every vantage point is used by the spectators, one of my favourite is where people are sat on bus shelters with their legs dangling over the front. After all this the crowds keep growing as you approach the Embankment, pass the London Eye, Big Ben, into Bird Cage Walk to Buckingham Palace, finally to the crescendo of the finish in The Mall.
The pace of my own run was its usual consistency with the second half only about 4 minutes slower than the first half. I felt good at the end and finished in 3:26:03 which I’m very pleased with. We had been luck this year to enjoy beautiful sunshine, on a mild calm day, perfect for running and great for the spectators.
London marathon, hope to see you again someday.
