The wave start must massively increase the time window for road closures too, right? The people who are going off at 11:30 are the ones who are going to be taking 6+ hours to get round.
1 Like
What is the cut off for London 7-8hrs?
My wife asked me to type a number in my tracker. That persons time was 8:10:58, she then told me she’d just seen a video and it was the last person to cross the line.
2 Likes
That’s pretty much walking pace whole way round … and probably stopping for a coffee
2 Likes
5.30 hrs is pretty much walking pace. My 86 yr old Mum could walk one in less than 7.00 I’m sure.
1 Like
It’s officially 8 hours but there’s a long thing about the sweeper bus and allowing everyone to finish etc etc. There was that massive backlash about 5 years ago about how they treated back markers, so they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. I’m pretty gutted with my time but it was under 5 hours and only gutted because I’m always around sub 4 hour runners. 
Looking at pictures from people doing 6hrs+ most of the crowds had gone by the time they’d got to tower bridge. I must’ve been going through at peak crowd numbers, so it’s really different and difficult for those at the back.
10 Likes
I know you said you’re gutted but i wouldn’t be. Sometimes our training goes well and sometimes it doesn’t. Life gets in the way.
I was meant to pace @sparky to a sub 4.00 at Goodwood, and he ended up up doing it alone and I broke down and walked two laps for a 4.24. I kept thinking ‘wtf’ just happened 
But that was the hand i was dealt that day.
You said you would have to adjust your expectations. Look at the positives of your race. You ran the most popular and well supported marathon in the world, had loads of support, got on tv as well!
Mrs FP reckons I’m not particularly fat but I hang around with thin people 
The guys I run with on Monday nights have just turned in 3.10s and 3.12 marathons. They are younger than me but I still get inspired.
Comrades next for you 
7 Likes
No! Yesterday just confirmed that’s a pipe dream. It’s never a complete no because you can’t predict the future. Coming down the “hill” after going past the Tower was excruciating for me and that was only a tiny hill - I didn’t even want to imagine the pain in Fields Hill in comrades. I think I’ll focus on consistent half marathons and strength training for a bit.
3 Likes
10 minute kms is a fairly brisk walking pace, which would equate to a 7 hour marathon.
I appreciate that these people who start the marathon with the intention of walking the whole way probably raise a lot of money for charity, but I can’t help thinking that they’ve chosen the wrong event. There’s lots of charity walking events out there that would be more suitable for them but wouldn’t carry the cache of the marathon.
The argument was always that you needed the slower people in there because the course and the finish infrastructure wouldn’t cope if everyone was going sun-4 hours, but that presumably is no longer the case with the wave starts to spread the field out.
5 Likes
same argument for the quick kids. All the champs and GFA lot dont get in the way of the charity joggers so ultimately have little impact on the event. From speaking to people the biggest problem seems to come around 3:30-5:00 as it becomes so congested you follow the crowd for a lot of it. A few years back I ran 2:52 with a 2 minute negative split as they cocked up the start times and even then we struggling to get past people in the first half. Had a brilliant time in the second half arriving at tower bridge fresh but did ultimately cost me a good 3-4 minutes I think.
8 Likes
In 2014 i set off with the 9min/mile pacer to just get round in sub 4, but it was so congested round Docklands ended up in a “plod” at times and lost the pacer. Spent a lot of the march down Embankment zig zagging past the walkers who had blown. Was a bit frustrating. If you arent fast then going for a time is pointless
3 Likes
Did I hear correctly Kiptum was mostly self trained? He’s pretty young, could potentially see alot more from him in the future!
1 Like
Running down hills is one of the easiest and quickest adaptations in my experience. A couple of downhill sessions that leave your quads in bits should sort you out!
3 Likes
… London now hitting 50,000 runners it will ever be thus. It’s always a muddle at the start of most though isn’t it! Madrid for me was possibly the most comically chaotic start I’ve ever been in. Pure Spanish anarchy 
London ‘21 was a lot of weeding in and out of folk but I was fairly slow. Didn’t bother me. 2012 i recall there was a bit of ducking and weaving at start but priority back then was to get to goal pace immediately and stick to it… and shaking off some poor chap who’d glued himself on at the start, insisted on chatting and looking for re-assurance. Those were my 2:47 days - yeah like you I hit tower bridge and felt fresh as a daisy and thought, ‘game on’ - if I’d rested the week prior and not run a 20 something miler on the Thursday preceding I’d prob have dipped under 2:45. Oops 
Never been one for plans & common sense - as is probably self evident on this forum
If fit I am a big fan of the small low key races - no frills - langdale ( beast of a course ), Strathearn ( bumpy ) and now defunct Lochaber ( Fort William ) i loved - just out and back, but was first sub 3. I ran 3:00:27 secs in Amsterdam ( 
) so put in a good winter of consistent mileage ( lot of hilly ten milers ) after a Boston debacle, and to my pleasant surprise, rolled home in 2:52
8 Likes
Oooh, 2014?! One of them was probably me! I wasn’t paying enough attention to my pacing, and was running ‘by feel’ which is fine if you’ve trained but I had not. If I remember correctly it was about Tower Bridge that I noticed I had caught a 3:30 pacer and thought to myself “oh, I might be in trouble here”.
And I was right!
7 Likes
Comfy looking splits hide a very challenging pre race (massive transport issues/stress) and race itself. Really had to dig, agony. 3:13:55, given the day sub 3:15 is one of my best marathon performances.
32 Likes
Amazing time. Well done 
negative split 
1 Like
Good work!
nice