For anyone hoping to get a place through the ballot for next year’s race, 456,000 people applied for 17,000 places😳. How do you like those odds.
I thought London Marathon had about 30,000 entries ?
Charities, sponsors and GFA take up most of the places
I have more chance of qualifying for the elite race 
Yeah. I’m running a 75HM or GFA Mara for mine.
457,861 to be precise 
, so ~1:27 (3.7%) chance of getting in via ballot, down from 4.2% last year.
GFA is limited to 6000 now (3000 men and women) so getting the qualification time is not guaranteed entry any more.
A rough guess at the entrants:
~42,000 total entries
17,000 ballot
6,000 GFA (max)
2,000 Championship?
4,200 Running club entries (1400 running clubs, average 3 per club?)
100 “celebs”
1,000 Corporate?
~12,000 Charity (Gold and Silver bond)
Even the club spots have been reduced to one per club unless it’s a very big club.
Wow - never realised how much it had changed since I last did it.
It certainly seems like a box ticking exercise for most people now.
I only want to do it if I can get a proper coloured number - because that’s part of the fun, right?
Championship also filters best times.
So a 1:14:59 might not be enough to qualify, either.
It totally depends on who enters for that in any given year.
I think there’s various thresholds for clubs, last year you needed 150 EA members to get 2 places (my club just scraped in), possibly the same this year. I’m sure the really big clubs get a few more but not masses.
Jeff
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I’m conflicted as I know it is one of the box ticking events in life and if I go for GFA then I need to get my arse in gear as I haven’t run a marathon since my IM days. So pulling a 3.05 out of the bag before August is pretty slim. I put in the ballot application as we had 4 from the club who took part this year and seemed to have got swept up in the excitement.
Probably easier to get on a reality show, become remotely someone people have heard of, get papped in your running kit and get offered a celeb spot.
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nope I think the turning elite option is still best. What do I need 2:15? just an hour 55 mins to find.
Anyone know when I will get my rejection magazine through?
VLM. Meh
Ironman 2020. Meh
My best option is to start identifying as female and cruise in to a spot. In my age group there’s a 43 minute difference in accepted qualifying times - ridiculous
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Not everyone gets a rejection magazine anymore. Too many people enter and it costs them too much.
How long before they have a Non-Binary category…
I thought it was an email now?
Fair enough. I will look forward to my digital refusal. Other marathons are available…