London Marathon Race Report 2024

I can only loosely remember the decision to enter the London Marathon lottery. But I clearly remember what happened when I got the nearly inevitable rejection. The rejection email asks if you’d like to apply for a place as a charity runner. I have never run for charity, but one group listed was the Organization for Autism Research (OAR). Rose was recently diagnosed as autistic and I have friends who have run for OAR. Suddenly, I didn’t just want to run London. I very much wanted to run London for OAR. I sent in the application and got accepted!

After the Wineglass marathon last fall, I asked ChrisNewCoach if he was down for another marathon together. To my delight he said he was! I trained through a fairly mild Connecticut winter. More miles, faster paces, gradually feeling more like my old running self.

That’s a really big deal. Running (mostly) without fear, without anger, without cramping or pain. Running because I love to run. I didn’t know if I would get this back. I am getting this back.

Training went well and ChrisNewCoach and I agreed I should aim for a 9 minute per mile pace. That’s a 3:56 marathon, a solid BQ, and sub-4 hours. It was the fastest I could get my head around.

If you want the TL;DR version of London 2024, I overachieved on fundraising, and underachieved on racing. I raised more than $6600 for OAR. It was much less difficult and tremendously more fun than I expected. I had no idea that raising money for an organization I care about could be so satisfying. I ran 4:08:02. No sub-4, no BQ, and slower than my time at Wineglass, though according to my Garmin, I ran quite a bit further. I am content with this outcome.

Now, for some more details! For those who prefer the REALLY long version!

We arrived in London on the Thursday before the race, dropped our bags at our AirBnB, and went straight to the expo. We picked up my bib, met the folks from OAR in person, bought some merch, including the awesome jacket, and took a few pictures.

We stayed at an AirBnB in a part of London called Fulham. Fulham was pretty far west, but it was a lovely neighborhood and traveling by tube made it easy to get around. We did a LOT of sightseeing on Thursday and Friday: The London Eye, the British Museum, some general walking around. We took advantage of every opportunity to eat cake.

On Saturday, I did my first parkrun at Fulham Palace. We toured the Bishop’s Garden and took a lot of pictures for Rose’s Agricultural Science project. We saw a phenomenal show in the West End called Standing At The Sky’s Edge. If this show makes it to the US, go see it!

Saturday night, we enjoyed a lovely dinner at a Fulham restaurant called Gola. Mocktails and pizza and pasta, yes please!

The Brits call it a “Flat Lay” – ready to go!

On race morning, I had about an hour’s ride. I was chatting with other runners on the train and met Ari Wolf, Wesleyan class of ’03! Just like me, Ari was in the red start, wave 4! We became pre-race buddies, which was much better than being alone. We hung out at the start, did a double round of porta-potty visits, dropped our bags on the lorries, chatting the whole time about Wesleyan and running. Perfect pre-race company! I did my pre-run dynamics and we headed off to the starting line. We started right on time at 10:36!

The start of the race looked exactly like all the videos I watched ahead of time and that was comforting and familiar. The first few miles are residential with plenty of families out cheering. At some point, Ari passed me, tapped me on the shoulder and called out “Hey stranger! How’s it going?” Such a nice guy!

I was planning a conservative start, maybe as slow as 9:20, but the first five miles came in at 9:07, 9:04, 9:03, 8:50, 9:04. So far, so good. Steady even pacing.

Mile 5 was assessment time. I had been planning on 9:00, not 9:05. That seems like a small difference, but those seconds add up over the course of 26 miles. More than that, 9:05 was clicking along but was feeling a little too hard for this early in the race. Speeding up to 8:55-9:00 felt foolhardy. I even considered backing off to 9:10. But a sub-4 marathon is a 9:09 average and I *really* wanted to break 4 hours. I had run 8:40 pace for 13.1 miles at New Bedford. It shouldn’t feel hard yet. Sometimes things get easier. The marathon is a long race. I decided to just hold at 9:05. I grabbed my first gel at 30 minutes as planned, a caffeinated Maurten. Maybe a little caffeine would help.

Miles 6-8 were 9:03, 9:00, 8:59. I can be a freaking metronome. Then, one of my favorite moments of the race, the Cutty Sark! The Cutty Sark is a big sailing ship and it’s a major party zone on the course. ChrisNewCoach would be waking up about this time and we had agreed I would imagine him spectating here. He would have had a blast! It was SO LOUD. I felt pretty good. Maybe I’d be able to hold onto that 9:00-9:05 pace, which would be a fantastic race.

After the Cutty Sark, it was non-stop crowds for almost the entire race. London is definitely the loudest race I’ve ever run. We went through a neighborhood called Rotherhithe and those folks were having a party! Loads of people, so much yelling, and pretty sure a good deal of drinking. From this point onward, it was wall-to-wall people and wall-to-wall sound. I hadn’t been able to get my music set up at the start. I tried again now, but I couldn’t hear the Aftershokz voice lady and couldn’t get the music going. I use music in different ways during a race and here, I was looking for a little protection. Like sunglasses (which I wore the whole race), music helps create a bubble around me, a defense against too much stimulus. This race was a LOT.

Miles 9-13: 9:05, 9:04, 9:17, 9:00, 9:18. First miles slower than 9:09. I knew by now this was going to be much more of a fight than I had been hoping for. When a marathon feels hard this early, you know it’s going to be a long day. I kept my mind in a good place. Sometimes I chanted the spelling of Geneva’s name: G-E-N-E-V-A-G-E-N-E-V-A because this race was for her, more than anything. Sometimes I just chanted Blank-Mind-Blank-Mind-Blank-Mind. I was able to keep my mind quiet, but I had to work harder and earlier to do it.

Our old friend Howie showed up very early. “Howie” is the name Coach Mick and I came up for the voice in your head that offers you a deal and wants you to quit. Howie is super sneaky. He suggested I hop in with someone racing in a wheelchair. I do eventually want to run with Achilles International so this idea had particular appeal. Howie always loves the idea of just turning the race into a party, high five everyone, maybe have some beer from spectators. Howie very much wanted me to walk. I said no, again and again. This is really early in a marathon to be having to do this kind of mental work though.

The next landmark was Tower Bridge, but where the hell was it? Finally we turned right and there it was! You could hear a collective gasp from the runners even over the massive din of the spectators. Running over Tower Bridge is a major highlight of the race and everyone knew it. A surprising number of people stopped to take selfies. I remembered to run in the middle of the road for the best picture. Running over Tower Bridge actually IS all it’s cracked up to be. It’s iconic and beautiful and the spectators and runners are all kind of losing their minds!

The next and most important check point was coming up: Seeing Mervus and Rose! They were stationed between miles 13 and 14 on my right, hopefully with the staff from OAR. The runners heading east and west run alongside each other here, so the plan was that they could see me around 13.5 and then again around 22 miles. They had the banner to help me spot them, but I still ran right by. I heard them though, turned around, and got a quick kiss from each of them. SO HAPPY to see them! Having my family at a race is THE BEST. Seriously. They wait for literally hours to see me for a few seconds. But those seconds mean the world to me. Mile 14: 9:38. That’s the kisses. Worth every second.

Now came the section of the race that I had expected to be the most challenging: the Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf. As reported in the course previews, the Isle of Dogs was a little quieter, but honestly, I didn’t mind. It had been such a roar for most of the race until now that I was fine with a break. My memory here doesn’t quite match up with what was apparently actually happening on the course. I expected Canary Wharf to be large modern skyscrapers, which I barely perceived, but I have photographic evidence. The Isle of Dogs was a quieter neighborhood – I saw that, check. But what I remember most from this section is running through a neighborhood of older brick buildings, about 3 stories tall. The streets were narrow and the crowds were over-the-top insane. It was bonkers loud, but also cool. People were spilling into the street more than anywhere else. It was so narrow that it was impossible to keep pace, but the excitement was amazing. Miles 15-18: 9:00, 9:10, 9:21, 9:21.

So, two 9:21 splits in a row. I was losing steam for sure. This was a LOT of work already. ChrisNewCoach had said to run this part of the race for me, to remember the many solo workouts, sometimes in the cold, how I got it all done. That helped. I drew on those memories and how strong I am. Getting past the halfway mark was a big relief. Getting to 16 miles was good, finally, “just” 10 miles to go. But I knew it was going to be a very long and very hard 10 miles. As much as possible, I fed off the energy of the crowds and the other runners. I remembered being disappointed in myself when I gave up at the Berlin marathon in 2021. I vowed not to give up.

The charity runners are one of the best parts of the London marathon. The 2024 edition of London raised more then 67 million pounds, the highest amount ever for a single-day fundraising event! I felt this spirit on the course. We were a wave of runners, seething through the streets of London, most of us wearing our designated charity’s logo on our singlets. Sometimes I could tap into this energy and I especially tried to use it at the end. It was so crowded that there was no room to speed up, even if my legs had been ready to go. On the other hand, it also wasn’t going to be easy to slow down. The ultimate “go with the flow” experience.

Mile 19 says 8:45. I have no explanation for that other than I suspect it was GPS error? Supposedly the tall buildings mess up the GPS signal. A big push to mile 20 for 9:05 pace, but I knew the last 10K was going to be ugly.

Miles 21-23: 9:38, 10:03, 9:47. Ouch. My lungs were doing ok but my legs were just done. I knew I had about an hour to go. I knew my watch was off because of not hitting the tangents. I knew it was going to be a long haul. Mile 21 was a slog. Mile 22 is the “Rainbow Mile” where London’s LGBTQ community comes out to cheer. It looked awesome but I was pretty deep in the pain cave by that point. I spent mile 23 hunting for Mervus and Rose. I saw the OAR folks this time through but did not see my family. It turns out they couldn’t get to the right side of the street where I was looking for them, but they saw me from their spot on the left side. Maybe I got some of their good energy! I just wanted to be done so badly.

For a lot of this section of the course, I felt simultaneously blocked by and dragged along by the other runners. I stopped looking at splits around mile 20. There were too many people for me to have run any faster and my legs had nothing left anyway. I thought about the nice dinner we had planned and how happy I would be to stop running. I recommitted again to not walking. I had two very small walk breaks, less than 5 seconds each, during the entire race. I am really happy about that. SO much better than my race in Berlin in 2021.

We ran by the London Eye. We ran through a tunnel. Finally I spotted Big Ben. Holy shit – it was still SO far away. This was a slog. I counted a lot. I passed a lot of people walking but some people also zoomed by me. I knew the race would be over soon and I really wanted it to end. It was just counting and running.

Mile 24-25: 9:37, 9:29. I was still fighting, which is what I wanted. Fight to the end, even on a day when you are going to miss your goal. Fight the losing battle, not just the winning one. This is the lesson of the marathon. Fight the losing battle for the cause you care about, every time. This is running but this is also life. Do not give up, even on a losing battle, especially on a losing battle.

Mile 26: 9:41. I knew my watch was quite off so I would actually have to run further than 26.2 miles. My Garmin measured 26.76. I was just looking for the red tarmac near the finish. Where the hell was Buckingham Palace? I was counting and running and knowing that my 3:56 is long gone, my sub-4 is gone, my sub 4:05 is gone and I will not even beat my time at Wineglass. But it doesn’t matter because soon I will be able to stop running and right now that is all I want. Finally the 365 yards to go sign but I know that’s close to a 400m and that still feels pretty dang far. Then 200m to go, just get it done. FINALLY THE FINISH! Thank God. 4:08:02. On an incredibly tough day. I can live with that.

I was a little dizzy at the finish line and gave myself a short excursion to the medical tent. Quite charmingly, I was cared for by a young volunteer only 17 years old, under supervision of an actual doctor. As per usual, I only needed to sit for a few minutes while my body got itself regulated. It was an extraordinarily slow walk to Mervus and Rose but I found them eventually. We made our way back to the AirBnB where I was able to get showered. We did indeed have an exceptional meal at a local pub called the Mitre.

London Marathon done!