It’s London Marathon Day – Heading Out to the Start Line!

Marathon morning Sunday 22 April was just perfect – clear and sunny with just a hint of a breeze.  If the weather holds out, this will be a perfect day for a marathon.  Following the obnoxious  cold weather on Friday when we did the bus top tour of London, I was a little apprehensive as to how I would manage if the weather was cold, wet and windy – after all, people walking around the streets of London on Friday had puffer jackets on!

My Aussie team mates and I caught the bus from our hotel – The Cumberland – to the assembly area at 7am.  The logistics of this whole exercise was phenomenal – lines of buses snaking through the streets of London to the assembly area.  We were all dressed in our running gear – and running number on our running tops which the security folks had to see before letting us through to the runners-only secure assembly area.  We all had old running tops and trackie pants on to keep us warm up until start time – these were then discarded just before the start and were picked up by the marathon organisers, washed and donated to charity. 

My ‘old’ keep warm trackie pants were actually only a day old – in desperation on Saturday morning, I went shopping onto Oxford Street to find something super cheap to wear on Sunday morning that I could throw away!  I didn’t want to get anything expensive from Addidas or Nike – but as I was walking past H&M, I saw a mannequin with black velour trackie pants and a sign that said ‘sale’.  I have never worn velour trackie pants before – and I still don’t know why people do – but at £5, velour or not they were coming ‘track side’!  I am not sure how many velour Olympic team track suits we’ll see this year – perhaps a future design idea for Stella McCartney!!!

With two hours to wait and tens of thousands of runners gathering, it was good to see hundreds of toilets and urinals – almost little suburbs of ablutions.  Well done Virgin Marathon organisers on this point – no need for any further comment!!  But as the start time drew nearer – like a trail of ants before the rain – runners made one last dash to the loos.  And guys – you were told in the Virgin Marathon instruction booklet, not to relieve yourselves on walls and trees – one started and literally dozens and dozens did the line up to the wall.   Next time there should be a sign that says if you get caught peeing on the wall, you don’t get your marathon medal…

As we made our way to the start line, all the old trackie tops and pants were thrown to the side – hopefully my black velour H&M trackie pants worn for a few hours will make a teenage girl very happy (and look a bit better on as well!).  As the thousands of people were streamed into the starting area, we were shoulder to shoulder with one another – and looking back and to the front, a sea of humanity excitedly moving for more than 20 minutes to the start line.  

And then across the start line – the 42.2kn / 26.2 mile challenge was on for us all.  Fitsista – you’ll need every bit of guts and determination today….