London marathon
You don't run alone
13.4.2014


Summary

Finish time: 3:08:46
Ranking: 2160 / 35864
Pace: 4:30 min/km
Weather: 11-14 C
Details

Splits

  5k 10k 15k 20k 25k 30k 35k 40k
Total time 0:21:55 0:43:39 1:05:43 1:27:58 1:50:03 2:12:41 2:35:23 2:58:43
Pace 4:23 4:21 4:25 4:27 4:26 4:32 4:33 4:41

How to get in

One of my running goals has been to participate all the big five marathons and have now completed them all: Berlin (2006), Boston (2007), New York (2008), Chicago (2012) and now London (2014). The biggest challenge in London was to get in. There are basically four options but the rules are unclear: I tried the lottery once without success. Nowadays the changes to get in seems to about 1:7. There are 120,000 lottery entry tickets available and they are all taken within few hours after the registration opens. The second choice in Finland is travel package sold by Vetikko travel but they also seem to have limited availabity and quite expensive: over 1500 euros for 3 days trip. The charity entries are not cheaper either: donations worth 1750-2750 pounds should be magically pulled out from one's sleeves.


The last and only option for me seemed to be the "good for age" entry. And yes, I had good enough result from Chicago (2012) to qualify. However, the rules limited these entries to UK citizens only. I made a clever plan and found a friend of a friend whose address in Cambridge I used in the registration. People had previously reported that this trick worked. But not this time as I got the following email 3.7.: 
Your application for a 2014 Virgin Money London Marathon Good for Age entry 
has not been accepted. This will be because one of the following reasons:
   * Your time is over the qualifying time.
   * Your time was achieved before the 1st of January 2012.
   * You are not a UK resident
Ouch! "Fuck London", I thought, and then forgot about it. I would just later choose another European marathon instead of troubling with the London. Later in the Autumn (25.9.) I found in Fincke's blog that he had registered to Paris marathon. This inspired me to do the same as it had been in my ToDo list long anyway. Once I even tried to get there but was too late to register. It was good time to act now, and spring in Paris seemed good alternative. However, two weeks later (7.10.) I received the breaking news from London: 
Dear Runner,
Congratulations on being accepted through the Ballot to run in the 2014
Virgin Money London Marathon.


Dilemma

Paris or London? According to calendar there was only one week between the two marathons: Paris 6.4. and London 13.4. Dilemma! Paris registration completed, paid, and my mind set to it. On the other hand, it is very tricky to get into London and it would be waste to lose this oppotunity now. Which one to choose? I delayed the choise until November when they pushed to pay by 8.11 or I would lose my place. I made financial sacrifice and registred for London just to buy more time. One of the registration would be lost, but hey, that's only money and it cannot buy marathon happiness. :-)

Autmun passed without much thinking about this issue. Then Singapore marathon in December brought the light. It went really bad (3:40) because of failing to adjust to the time zone. During the race my body was basically sleeping and I just seemed not to get anywhere. Another surprising consequence was that my recovery after the race was extremely fast. Next day I felt I could have gone jogging already. Due to these two facts, I decided that I will run both: Paris AND London.

I decided that I will give all my efforts in Paris, and then just cruise through London using whatever energy remaining. I completed Paris although not exactly as fast as I wanted. Official (gun) time was 3:16. This itself is reasonable but my buns and the muscles around hips became tight already after 13 km, which forced me slow down the speed. This problem had been present already sometime and backfired during the race. Fortunately no cramps nor any biger problems showed-up. Next day walking was little bit tough but the second day I felt I was recovering already fast and started jogging. My brief one week preparation for London contained the following. 
mon   7.4.   (rest)
tue   8.4.   1:01    7 km   
wed   9.4.   1:43   11 km  
thu  10.4.   (rest)
fri  11.4.   0:20    4 km  
sat  12.4.   0:10    1 km
I was ready. Most importantly the tight muscles had soften and before the race day, they felt actually better than before the Paris marathon.

Race story

I had never ran two marathons within less than 2 months in between except 2009 (Joensuu 9.5. and St.Petersburg 28.6.). It would therefore be mystery how would I do in London. My plan was to start easy and save energy; keep on going until running out of energy and then just crawl to the finish line. Paris lessions were also fresh in memory so all was there to prevent starting too fast.

London morning was chilly so I took the unused Paris after-marathon shelter to (under)cover me: Frenchman in London. :) Start place was Greenwich park. I got there using the tube and by quite lengthy walking through the park. Fortunately the start pens were well organized and easy to get in so there was no hurry. This was much better organized than in almost any other big marathon I have participated. Minor issue was that the streets are quite narrow filled by lots of people, giving the motto: If you run London, you won't run alone. :-) Anyway, weather was +11 C but sunny (raising up to +14 C towards the end) and off we went. The pictures below are taken by my mobile phone camera. I spotted some funny costumes including a bride and fast Finnish lady passing by me.


In the beginning I felt really well, no problems nor tireness. To my pleasant surprise, Paris seemed to have really soften the problematic muscles and no tightning appeared anywhere at any point of the race. So I kept on going and... enjoyed. I ran with a planned relaxed pace, yet only slightly slower than in Paris. No problems with tight muscles, energy levels or anything else I could imagine. The best thing was that I managed to keep a good pace almost throughout the race. Tireness hit only at around 38 km but I still managed to get to the finish line in good shape, 8 min faster than in Paris!. This was really unexpected but a pleasant surprise. Thanks Paris and London, this runner is content. Below are organizers pictures, mostly from the last leg.



Post race thoughts

Happy runner made the best of the year. I have now completed all my marathon goals: Future challenges are still open but since the Major Five have changed to Major six (now including Tokyo), I have to consider it as one of the future goals. But if getting in will be as difficult as London, then I will just skip it. There are some others marathons, however, that I consider running sometime in the future. They are not in any priority order, none of them (except Vaasa) is in "Must do" category, and next one is probably not from this list anyway. Any suggestion (and reason) where to run next...?