London Marathon 2025 - Training Blog #1

Every year English Athletics (EA) gives affiliated running clubs a free London Marathon place. We put together a ballot for our entry for those members that are EA registered and wish to run this iconic event. This year’s draw had 20 club members.

Thank you Owen for drawing my name out the hat and at that moment on 23rd December I went through a range of emotions such as shock, excitement and definitely a little panic. Oh damn did I really want to do this?

And then the next day I hit the wall with a chest infection and did not run for 10 days. What a great start.

Running a marathon for me is the hardest event of my running calendar. The pressure of a timed road event is completely different from a long trail run. With a long trail run you can collapse for a rest in the woods with nobody seeing your moment of pain, whereas road marathons are more relentless with no place to ‘hide in the woods’ and the need to maintain pace for me just adds pressure.

But long distance is about overcoming the pain of mind and body.

I will update you fortnightly on my London marathon training and here is update 1. 

After no training for 10 days I am pleased to have completed 61.9k in 7 runs and I have really enjoyed this running in the fresh January weather. These kilometres have included a variety of runs such as DRC intervals, 10k road and trail, and longer 21k park run sandwich with FTRC friends.

I don’t make monthly donations to gyms as they don’t provide enough structure for me, and I need that person on my shoulder saying have you done this, and if not why?. This person is Andy from DRC who structures my training. I have completed a lot of events, but don’t pretend to know everything, so his expertise and experience is vital to keep me on track.

Before I worked with Andy I never did enough strength training and Andy has put me straight on this, so the structure of my marathon training for the next month is 4 days a week running, 2 days strength and then maybe day 7 is yoga or massage. 

I have run the London Marathon before in 2021. A little Strava stalking from Jack reminded me I came in at 4 hours 31 minutes and when I was asked about this years’ time I had to remind Jack that I am an old man now so anything around that time would be great. 

So the first two weeks have eventually found their momentum, but anyone who has trained for big events knows training is never a straight line.

2 weeks done, 15 weeks to go!