The Preparation
After all of that whining in the week leading up to the race, my cold was all but a sniffle by the time Sunday morning came around. To say that I was relaxed was an understatement. I’d been in bed by 9pm every night of that week, eaten pasta 4 nights in a row and hadn’t been on a run in 5 days.

On the morning of the race I stuffed myself with 3 slices of toast, 2 cereal bars, 2 bananas, 1 pack of jelly beans and 1 carbo gel. My old school teacher was running the race on the day; one of the final few who had been given a guaranteed ballot place after applying 5 times unsuccessfully (something that the London Marathon team are phasing out due to increased popularity in the race). His son, a good friend of mine, was on camera duty. He didn’t disappoint.

The Start
The rain came down half an hour before the start of the race, so all of the early birds who had handed their belongings in to the lorries were now all huddled, freezing under the trees of Greenwich Park. I squeezed down another gel and a packet of jelly beans and joined them. So much for the hot weather we’d been promised!

My previous VLM time of 4 hours 45 minutes surely had something to do with the starting group I was placed in. I was starting the race from pen 8 (out of 9) so it was a good 15 minutes before the I crossed the start line and I immediately had to face a home truth.

Mile 1
There was no way that I was going to be able to stick to the 9-minute-mile pace I’d wanted to (and trained for). The crowds were just too big. I found myself checking my watch every few seconds and watching the little digital man run further and further away from me. 3 minutes in and I was already 40 seconds off pace! What a start.

Mile 2
The rain had now cleared but somehow I was still getting wet. How? Because a priest was blessing the runners with Holy Water from the side of the road!

Mile 3
We merged with the blue and green running groups (yes, I did boo them and shout ‘cheat’ a few times) and the red (optimum) race line appeared on the road. But of course there is no way of sticking to it as the numbers are just too high.

Mile 4
By this time I had scaled a few pavements, weaved my way through some stragglers and found my rhythm, partly thanks to the number of brilliant bands playing from the side of the road. Although I did have ‘Achy Breaky Heart‘ stuck in my head for the next two miles.

Mile 5
“Don’t tell my heart, my achy breaky heart…”. The Taiko Drums underneath the Greenwich flyover were amazing as usual. Check out this video to give you an idea of what it’s like under that bridge. It doesn’t do the volume justice at all. Absolutely awesome and what a motivator.

Unfortunately, straight after this the road merged from two lanes into one and forced everyone to a walking pace.

Mile 6
Into the heart of Greenwich we went and the crowds picked up to 3 people deep. This is quite a busy section for the crowds as this area is walking distance from the start line. Where the path was fenced there was a queue almost half a mile long of people trying to get out to the DLR. Spectators do have a tough time of it on race day, but they never complain because it pales into insignificance with the plight of a marathon runner. I would though! 5 hours on your feet, jostling through Central London and public transport on one of the busiest days of the year? What a nightmare!

Mile 7
Past the first of the TV cameras around the Cutty Sark and out towards Deptford. I’ve run this area of London a heck of a lot during training and there isn’t a lot to see. Luckily I spotted my supporters in the crowd, ready and waiting with the camera.

Mile 8
I spotted my first record breaker of the day. The tallest costume to finish the marathon was won by a giant yellow giraffe! The poor guy wearing it was having to hold the long neck (made from what looked like a piece of ventilation pipe) up with his hands. He must have been absolutely spent by the end of the race.

Mile 9
The former editor of Running Free magazine, Julia Buckley, jogged up behind me at this stage and said hello. Last year she ran a small piece on this blog in the magazine so it was great to finally meet Julia and she looked as fit as a fiddle. What Julia didn’t know was that I had picked mile 9 for a wee break (not a Scottish break but a toilet break) already in my head and after we’d finished chatting I snuck off to the side and watered the plants. Unfortunately I ended up running around the 15k timer, which is why I have no recorded time on my official stats.

Mile 10
I was feeling pretty good. The runners had evened out ever so slightly, my pace was fairly consistent and my pouch of jelly beans was keeping my fuel topped up.

Mile 11
By now we’d passed quite a few pubs and I was starting to feel a bit of resentment towards the beer sippers on the pavement. I’d quit beer for the 4 months prior to the marathon as a new year’s resolution, so that pint at the end of the race was starting to sound good. The sun was now out, making it perfect drinking weather. Just another 15 miles eh?!

Mile 12
Overcast again but pretty humid at the same time. So much so that the chant ‘OGGY OGGY OGGY’ had been switched to ‘MUGGY MUGGY MUGGY’. But, as ever, taking on water was really not a problem. I can’t praise the volunteers enough. On the day nobody goes thirsty as 750,000 bottles of water are handed out. It’s taking on too much water that is a worry. All of the bottles this year came with flip caps, which meant that you could carry them along with you. And with a bottle of water handed out at every mile there is a very serious risk of hyponatremia. I overcame this by showering my self at every available opportunity to try and avoid passing out from the heat (which nearly happened last year)

Mile 13
Over Tower Bridge and half of the marathon done! I’ve run over this bridge about 40 times but nothing really prepares you for it on race day. This is the bit that everyone sees on TV and you can’t help but get caught up in the euphoria. I was feeling surprisingly good and although I’d lost a bit of time in the crowd I’d managed to complete the half-way distance in just over 2 hours.

Mile 14
Down the Highway towards Canary Wharf and the leaders of the pack are already coming back in the opposite direction; not exactly a morale booster. But the spectators are now borderline farcical as they all cram around the roadside to get a good view.

Mile 15
Tiredness is starting to creep in and it doesn’t help that this is the longest and most boring road ever, with no real landmarks to take in, other than Canary Wharf staying exactly the same size in the distance. Someone cooks a barbecue right next to us and laces the entire stretch of road in smoke. Just what the doctor ordered.

Mile 16
As you enter the Isle of Dogs you travel under a tunnel and out of view of the spectators for the first time in the race. This is where you’ll find a lot of runners sneaking in a quick walk or a sit down now that the crowds can’t judge you. I actually caught another Lymphoma Association runner on the phone!

Mile 17
A psychological milestone. It was at this point last year that I had needed to walk, after feeling quite sick and light-headed. Not this year baby! And to top it off the crowds were better than ever. People are quick to comment on the lack of crowds around this area (Island Gardens), but I was bloody impressed.

Mile 18
Deep in the heart of Canary Wharf now and my mile times were starting to drop off slightly. This could have been due to the stadium-esque crowd levels distracting me from the race. It was truly ridiculous. I felt quite self conscious at one point as a clearing gave the spectators full view of my running vest and ripples of ‘Come on Sir Jog A Lot‘ went through the crowd.

Mile 19
I managed to sneak my way on to the BBC here. As brief as my moment of fame was, a ton of friends got in touch to say they’d seen me! I also clocked a work colleague dancing with her samba school. She cheered me on like I was a celebrity, which was awesome (cheers Karla!).

Mile 20
OK. So this is starting to get hard. The sun was out in force now. I was sick to death of my jelly beans and couldn’t stomach another carbo gel. Why was I starting to hit the wall when I’d fuelled up so well? The turn left on to the home straight was bugger all of a relief. That’s still another 6-mile slog.

Mile 21
Is that cramp? I actually hear myself say “Oh no!” out loud as my right calf starts to twinge with the first signs of cramp and I run with my toe pointed upwards as far as I can get it to try and stretch it out.

Mile 22
I’m still running. Every inch of my body wants to walk and I find myself cursing my own stupid, bloody blog post that stated that if anyone sees me walking they can kick me up the Khyber. Part of me really questions why I’m doing this. I feel terrible for thinking it, but is this really worth the pain? My only consolation, however harsh, is that there are still some runners going in the other direction and haven’t yet passed the halfway point. 4 more miles.

Mile 23
Without noticing it, my mile times level out a bit. I run at the pace I feel comfortable with and when I feel the need to walk I just turn it down a bit. It’s really hard now. I’m soaked through as with every mile I grab a bottle of water and cover myself with it.

Mile 24
I’m not smiling anymore. Not even when Liz Yelling hands me a bottle of Lucozade. What are you smiling at Liz? You’re not running are you? But even as I enter the tunnel before the Embankment, out of the eyes of the crowd and the wave of heat hits me, I don’t walk.

Mile 25
Big Ben symbolises the finish in the distance, but it looks so… far… away. But the crowds are just insane and the level of cheers turns to a roar. Who gives a monkeys about the landmarks in the distance when you have a crowd this energetic there to scream you on to the finish? It’s easy to think that the spectators don’t really understand the anguish you’re going through. But boy do they appreciate what you are doing and the standard of support is literally jaw dropping.

Mile 26
Spotting two friends here is just the kicker I need to get me down the Mall (which now resembles the travelator from Gladiators; a never-ending red treadmill). As I finally turn the corner and spot the finish line I can’t help but smile. This was much harder than last year and I don’t have anything left for a sprint finish. But once I’m across that line there’s nothing like it. It’s like having a water balloon of relief, joy, pain, dizziness and accomplishment smashed over your head.

LonDONE!

Time: 4:21:21 (25 minutes off last year)

The Aftermath
This video sums it all up.

]]> http://www.sirjogalot.com/2010/04/28/virgin-london-marathon-2010-race-day/feed/ 4 http://www.sirjogalot.com/2010/04/24/insert-motivational-speech-here/ http://www.sirjogalot.com/2010/04/24/insert-motivational-speech-here/#comments Sat, 24 Apr 2010 17:48:41 +0000 Sir Jog A Lot http://www.sirjogalot.com/?p=1789 So here we are again. Another four months of training done and this time tomorrow it’ll all be over.

I’ve just been for a walk around Blackheath and the atmosphere is absolutely electric. The blue, red and green starting pens are up, temporary fencing has been erected everywhere and there are lot of very nervous-looking faces carrying big red Virgin bags, walking with their eyes on stalks.

Tomorrow, 36,000 people will converge on my back garden, pee all over it and then run off! Over the course of the next few hours everyone of these people will then throw litter at least six times, most will urinate in public some more and some will even undress themselves in front of the Queen at Buckingham Palace!

Only during one Sunday of the year can you do all this and a) not get arrested and b) be given a medal for it! The London Marathon is, without a doubt, one hell of a momentous occasion. One that I am proud to be a part of for the second year running.

So before you put your body through a 26 mile slog (and my web traffic grinds to a halt again) let me first wish you the best of luck for the race. You’ve trained for months to get yourself into this position and just to be able to complete the 26 miles is a feat that even Pheidippides himself (the first ever marathon runner) couldn’t do without collapsing and dying!

If you are running for charity, then take a moment in the morning to remember why you are doing it. You’ll need that motivation at mile 20 when all you want to do is walk. If you feel like walking or even dropping out, before you do try to think about how you’ll feel after the race. It might take 20 minutes for you to start feeling better once you stop, but once that 20 minutes is gone you’ll have the rest of your life to redo that decision in your head.

This will only be the second time I’ve run a marathon. But I don’t half regret walking for that 30 seconds at mile 18 last year. So if you see me walking at any point tomorrow make sure you give me a good boot up the jacksy!

Please come and say hello if you spot this fluorescent green monstrosity. I’ll be all the way back in red pen 8 out of 9  this year.

Good luck and see you after!

SJAL x

Phil gave myself and some other marathon runners a really motivational speech before the event. I came away with a sincere admiration for this guy and I don’t think I’ve ever come across someone who has such a determination for charity.

So when I found out that Phil is doing the London Marathon again this year I was understandably impressed. But this year he has set himself a target of 26 hours and will be dedicating each mile of his walk to a different charity.

You can see a list of charities at his home page, but Phil’s first mile will be dedicated to Arthritis Research UK and he’ll be walking with Catherine Bull (22) who has Rheumatoid Arthritis. You can leave a message of support or leave a donation at the ‘Starting With Arthritis‘ page.

If you have any other amazing marathon stories then feel free to leave a comment below this post and tell us about it!

Now I can sit around and sulk about the fact that I’ll be potentially be running the marathon ill, or I can focus on getting better. It’s not uncommon for runners who have been training for 4 months to pick up a cold in the weeks before a race. In fact, I found myself reading my own blog post from last year to remind me of the fact.

Endurance training causes a rise in the hormone cortisol which causes stress. This stress can affect the immune system, which can make you more susceptible to infection! So basically, because I’m eating better and exercising more, I’m more likely to get a cold than Fatty McFatterson of Cheeseburger Land!

So today I’m writing this blog post from bed, watching cheesy daytime TV while nodding in and out of consciousness. The reality is that I’ve probably done all the training I can to get me through the marathon. For me to go out now and risk lengthening the illness by running would be really stupid.

I’ll be following the old neck rule on the day. Again, from last year’s post…

If your ailment is above the neck (sniffles, head colds, ear infections) then running will most likely not do you any harm and if your ailment is below the neck (injury, coughs, stomach aches) then running won’t do you any good.

I’m understandably a bit gutted, which is why receiving a good luck card from three terrific kids (Tilly, Jemima and Hector) cheered me up so much this morning. This is their depiction of me on race day (…and how right they will be)!

Off to get some more tissues…

What? Don’t kid yourself that you were reading this post for any information other than the amount of freebies you can get! We all know that attending the London Marathon Expo is all about picking up bags of free or bargain stuff.

I took the trip to pick up my marathon number early this year as my way of saying thanks to all of the volunteers who make the marathon go so smoothly. I live in London and the crowds usually get far busier on the Friday and Saturday as people have to travel at the end of the week and can’t get to the Expo any earlier. So on the first day possible I made my way down while the numbers were small. Merry Christmas Virgin!

After wading through the posse of Adidas sales people I made exactly the same mistake as I had last year and used the voucher at the front of the final instructions magazine to buy a ton of Lucozade Sport fodder, right at the start. Which meant that I had to carry a heavy bag of fluids around the arena (not recommended when trying to relax before a marathon). Please don’t take the last 4 posts on this blog to mean that I’m sponsored by Lucozade. I know I mentioned them a lot but they’re everywhere!

I’d recommend visiting the back of the arena if you need a break from trawling around all of the stands and getting your gait analysed 10 times. Listen to a few of the speakers and get some great last-minute advice on carb-loading, what to do on race day and where to find the Runner’s World pacers (basically, eat a little bit more for breakfast lunch and dinner for the next few days, don’t cover your number when you cross the finish line so they can’t find your photos and the 4-hour pacing group can be found in pen 5).

It’s all very exciting. One speaker made the point that you may never get to play at Wembley alongside Rooney, or at Wimbledon against Murray, but come Sunday you’ll be running the best marathon event in the World alongside the best athletes in the World. It’s hard not to get a little bit anxious!

It’s a great event with everything you could possibly need to get round the marathon. On Friday Paula Radcliffe and Eammon Martin will be on stage and there’ll be over 140 exhibitors ready to schmooze the life out of you. Enjoy it and bring a bit of dosh if you have it to spare! Also, try to catch a bit of Dave Bedford’s stand up while you’re there…

If you do feel like having a bit of sex after the marathon by way of a reward to yourself, then make sure you swing your medal behind your back so you don’t knock anyone’s teeth out!

P.S. You thought I’d forgotten didn’t you?!

Goodie bag:

• Jointace Massage Gel
• Strawberry Yazoo Milkshake
• Mitchum Deodorant
• Can of London Pride Beer
• Nature Valley Fruit & Nut Bar
• Velvet Crunch Crisps
• Ricola Herb Drops
• Lots of leaflets!

Extra freebies I picked up:

• Adidas Deodorant
• Big Bag of Jelly Babies
• Action For Children Oyster Card Holder
• £10 Off Voucher for zipvitsport.com
• Virgin Money Pen
• Running Free Magazine
• Marathon Pace Wristband
• Athletics Weekly Magazine

The wave of nausea that hit me was quite unexpected. It immediately brought back the latter stages of the marathon and it took me 4 gulps get the stuff down.

I’ve never enjoyed taking carbo gels. Firstly, the taste and sensation takes some getting used to. I’ve tried out quite a few different types of gel while training for the marathon, each with varying levels of viscosity. I simply can’t get used to the process of squeezing a sachet of runny, bitter-sweet goop down my throat without feeling the urge to regurgitate.

But if you are going to get through that dreaded wall, then you need to fuel yourself sufficiently to stop your body’s glycogen stores from depleting and turning to fat as an energy source. In 2010, Lucozade Sport will, for the first time, be providing carbo gels to London Marathon runners at miles 14 and 21 to help runners with that extra fuel they need to get through the final stages of the race. While I’m sure that this is a welcome introduction for a lot of you, I’ll be trying something different.

I’ll never forget the rush I felt at mile 22 of last year’s race when I grabbed a jelly baby from a helpful kid at the side of the road and wolfed it down. The effect was almost immediate. So, a few weeks ago I tried out some PowerBar Gel Blasts on my last long run to see how they’d fair against carbo gels. These gel blasts are like large Haribo sweets with a gooey filling.

They’re quite big and need a bit of chewing so consuming them can affect your breathing. I took one every half an hour, which meant I had to carry 7 with me. Unfortunately, the website recommends you take 1-3 every 10 minutes! Which, would have meant that I’d have to consume 18 of them on my run! I’d barely have time to breathe!

Last week Lucozade Sport sent through some sample sachets of their Jelly Beans and I tried them out on a 12.5 miler on the weekend. I have to say, the results were pretty spectacular. Admittedly, the distance wasn’t quite as long as the week before, but my split times were better than ever! I set a new PB.

I’d taken a sachet half an hour before the run and had another sachet while I was out. Once I’d washed them down, I felt a hell of a lot more sprightly. Rather than just being sweets, the jelly beans are packed full of carbohydrates and are a welcome alternative to the gels.

But again, they advise you to consume quite a lot to obtain the same amount of energy you’d receive from a gel sachet. Having no pockets in my shorts, I simply carried a sachet in my hand while running. So at one stage I was running with a water bottle under my arm, tipping the sachet into my right hand and consuming half the packet in one go to try and get it out of the way. With a mouth full of jelly beans, my breathing was obviously affected.

On race day I’ll empty a few packets of these into a pouch on my arm and consume them gradually over time. This, coupled with a bowl of pasta for the previous three nights running, should see me to the finish line. Just over a week to go now!

Let me know if you have any tips on how to get through the wall and how you’ll be carrying your fuel to cross the finish line.

If you fancy winning some of these jelly beans to run the marathon with then make sure you enter the competition to win a Lucozade Sport marathon race packs.

The London Marathon Media Guide is full of great statistics and facts about the London Marathon. It’s also 210 pages long so to save you some time I’ve lifted some of the key sections for you here.

Enjoy!

London Marathon 2010

Statistics

Estimated number of spectators: 1 million
Largest field: 35,694 finishers [2007]
Number of people that applied to run in 2010: 162,000
Most popular age group: 30-39 [18,639 runners]
Oldest runner: Jerzy Kolodziej [86 years old!]
Runners who have birthdays on race day: 173
Most common occupation out of runners: Teacher/Education
Goody bag items: 500,000
Finishers’ medals: 36,000
Number of portable toilets: 1,250
Litres of red line paint (marking the course route): 300
Number of volunteers: 6000
Number of ambulances: 50
Bottles of baby oil: 200
Amount of vaseline available: 100lbs
Number of plasters: 2000
Number of foil blankets: 40,000
Bottles of water: 750,000
Pubs on the course: 81
Rubbish bags filled after race: 3,450

World Records

Fastest time in a Santa outfit: 2:55:50(!)
Fastest time in an animal costume: 3:42:27 [ostrich]
Fastest time dressed as a vegetable: 3:34:55 [carrot]
Fastest time dressed as a fruit: 4:32:28 [orange]
Most linked runners to complete a marathon: 29
Most money raised by one individual: £1,841,138
Fastest run by a married couple (aggregated): 5:59:20

Celebs running this year

• Princess Beatrice of York
• Tony Audenshaw (Bob Hope from Emmerdale)
• Mark Chapman (Chappers from Radio 1)
• Jenni Falconer (Presents the National Lottery)
• Ricky Groves (Garry Hobbs from Eastenders)
• Michelle Heaton (Singer from LibertyX)
• Russell Howard (Comedian)
• Loraine Kelly (GMTV Presenter)
• Natalie Imbruglia (Singer/Songwriter/Neighbours Actress)
• George Lamb (Big Brother Presenter)
• Eddie Jordan (F1 Presenter)
• Lee Latchford-Evans (Singer from Steps)
• Nell McAndrew (Model)
• Rich McCourt (Dick from ‘Dick and Dom’)
• Katie Price (Jordan) – PULLED OUT
• Steve Rider (Football Presenter)
• Gordan Ramsay (Chef)
• Ben Shephard (GMTV Presenter)
• Michelle Ryan (Zoe Slater from Eastenders)
• Gary Speed (Footballer)
• Iwan Thomas (Athlete)
• Jessie Wallace (Kat Slater from Eastenders)
• Dennis Wise (Footballer)
• Dominic Wood (Dom from ‘Dick and Dom’)

Have any other London Marathon facts you want to share? If so, leave a comment below!

Image by shimelle via Flickr

An advert for a show on Channel 4 caught my attention last week. The show, entitled Tracing the Marathon’s Millions, would follow journalist Ben Laurence as he looked into the costs involved in staging the London Marathon and the amount of money the race organisers actually pay out to charity.

Skip forward to the morning prior to the programme and the London Marathon issue a statement saying:

The London Marathon Limited and the London Marathon Charitable Trust Limited totally deny any allegations of wrongdoing and are surprised and shocked at the lack of evidence presented by the programme’s so-called investigative team to support this desperate attempt to undermine one of the world’s finest sporting events.

Translation; take Friday’s show with a pinch of salt.

As a runner, who, after the 25th April, will have run the London Marathon twice (raising over £4100 for charity through the Golden Bond scheme), I immediately went on the defensive and watched the show begrudgingly on Friday night. I do work in the media and I don’t claim to have a specialist knowledge on the subject. But I do know when to take a news story seriously and when to recognise a quote or a half-truth taken completely out of context to give a story a more sensationalist spin.

But after watching the show on Friday, I didn’t find myself overly aggravated. The makers of Dispatches were taking a big risk in making this programme. Back in 1991 Channel 4 were made to pay out a vast sum of money after the show made unsubstantiated claims about the London Marathon founders. This, coupled with this year’s announcement that the London Marathon has helped raise over half a billion pounds for charity since its inception, makes you wonder why the Dispatches show would target such a popular entity.

Image by aubergene via Flickr

At first the show didn’t tell us anything new. I’m sure most of us are aware at how competitive the race is to enter and how the Golden Bond system works. Charities pay around £300 for a place in the marathon, meaning that in order to secure a profit they are forced to set fundraising targets for their runners (normally around the £1500 mark). It is easy to forget that £300 of the money you raise for your charity is covering the cost of your place and going back to the London Marathon.

The marathon is, of course, a charity and 100% of the profits made (after the costs of staging the event and salaries etc.) go to the London Marathon charitable trust. But Dispatches claim that only a quarter of the £18m received last year actually went to the charity. The show also went on to question the costs of staging the event and showed the salary of one particular member at a remarkable £240,000. The Marathon’s chief executive Nick Bitel however, explained on the Third Sector website that this person was paid a one-off bonus as part of their salary for saving the marathon £3m in sponsorship agency fees.

The show also shone a light on the fact that the London Marathon holds a complete monopoly over charities. It’s obviously a very popular event, which provides great exposure and awareness to some very worthwhile causes. But the odds of a charity being able to obtain a Golden Bond place if they applied now were very slim indeed (one charity representative in the show was told that he could never expect to be granted a place). This did strike me as unfair, considering that some charities have hundreds of runners.

Make no mistake about it. The show has stirred up a lot of anger amongst a lot of people (including the man responsible for the resignations of some senior BBC officials, Alastair Campbell) and the London Marathon Limited has stated that it will be referring the production company, Blakeway (who make the Dispatches show), and Channel 4 to OFCOM. This does make me wonder how accurate the show was and question how much of it to take seriously. Dispatches allegedly repeatedly rejected to meet the London Marathon team and also denied them the opportunity to appear on the show to say what they wanted to say unedited.

Did you see the show on Friday night? Please let me know what your thoughts were by posting a comment below.

Tracing the Marathon’s Millions was aired on C4, 8pm 9th April 2010. You can watch it on 4OD for a limited time here.

*Update: April 5th 2010
I updated this slideshow after I went home for the weekend and discovered another newspaper had included the story!

Image by bignoseduglyguy via Flickr

As I finished a 14-miler last weekend I passed two runners coming in the other direction. These two chaps, virtually sprinting, were about 7 feet tall and didn’t have an ounce of fat on them. If you’d have cooked them up and made a jogger-burger you’d still be chewing the meat a week later. These two were as toned as they come.

I’d manage to finish my 14-mile training run in about 2 hours 10 minutes (not bad going considering I was taking it easy). Who knows at what stage these two runners were. But just from the look of their posture, the length of their stride and the clothes they were wearing you could tell that they were professionals. Or at least ran for more than a hobby.

This got me thinking. How much of a lifestyle change do you have to make to become a professional runner? How much competition is there? What sort of money are we talking for a race win? How fast do you really have to be?

The first thing to distinguish is which type of event are we trying to excel in? Track runners have a completely different training regime and diet to distance runners. This being a blog about the London Marathon, we’ll focus on marathon running.

1. Training

My (intermediate level) training plan for the marathon consists of 5 runs a week. Every Saturday I’ll go on my long run, adding a mile each week until I’ve hit 21 miles before tapering off a few weeks before a race. I’ll be lucky if I run more than 30 miles a week in the mid stages. Paula Radcliffe’s training plan for the same race sees her running 150 miles a week. That’s the equivalent of London to Cardiff each week!

Working on an 8-day cycle, she’ll typically do two runs a day (swapping some runs for a session with the weights or a sports massage). There’s no denying that in order to race at a competitive level some serious time on the road is needed. This raises the question of holding down a job. Surely there aren’t enough hours in the day?

2. Diet

As well as giving up your free time, there are certain foods you must give up (or at least cut down on) to have a chance of competing professionally. Keep the refined sugars and fat down and the carbs and protein up. Also, due to the increased level of training, professional runners have to eat often. To speed recovery, a runner will usually eat within half an hour after a run. So say hello to bananas, rice and salmon and wave goodbye to crisps, iced-cream and fizzy drinks (although our favourite record holder can’t go without her daily dark chocolate fix).

3. Competition

To compete in the London Marathon as a male elite runner you need to be able to run a marathon in under 2 hours 45 minutes (sub 3.15 if you are female). No small feat. But plenty elite runners manage this each year and are in with a shot of claiming victory.

The World Marathon Majors compiles the big 5 city marathons (Boston, New York, Chicago, Berlin and our favourite London). In order to qualify you must score in the top 5 in at least 4 of these events. Again, no small feat. But this is where the prize money starts to get interesting.

4. Money

Let’s not beat about the bush. To start making money from winning races you’ve got to be good. Really good. To get in the money at the London Marathon you’ve got to be able to run a sub 2:11:00 (sub 2:28:00 for women). This will earn you a cool $1000.

But get past a certain level and the money starts to get pretty tasty. Finish first place in the London Marathon and you can expect upwards of $50,000. And it doesn’t stop there.

Finish the marathon in under 2:05:00 and you’ll get a $100,000 kicker. Break the course record in the process and you’ll get another $25,000. Break the World record and you’ll land yourself another $125,000 on top of all your winnings! So if you are a world record breaker, there is potential to win upwards of $300,000!

Couple that with winning the World Marathon Majors and you’re on your way to becoming a millionaire.

Running for a living
(cue cheesy stock photo)

Let’s face it. Unless you’re the best of the best, you’re not going to see any prize money from entering a marathon. The decision to turn professional can’t be easy. As we’ve seen, training is a full-time job and requires ultimate dedication. To gamble a lifestyle on the premise of winning a race seems to me to be a big gamble. It is no surprise then that the majority of professionals start young and gain their confidence and technique through years of experience (from track running out of a school club).

Of course, earning a living from running doesn’t just have to come from winning races. Coaches and personal trainers at a basic level can charge around £50 an hour for their services. Get a job at a running magazine, writing about your favourite sport and you’ve obtained the epitome of job satisfaction!

I’d love to hear from any althetes who run full time. Do you know anyone who makes a living out of running? How big a yearly income can they expect? Feel free to comment below and let us know.