Please read and enjoy our article and watch your FREE LONDON MUSIC VIDEO at the end "And time here will finish and time here will begin
May love preserve us in the race we're born to win"
"Until Our Race is Won" (J. Horden)
The clock counts down slowly; it seems to take an age and the burning tension in the stomach is almost unbearable.
Finally the siren wails and, with a deep intake of breath, the strong hands grip the wheels and the chairs are driven forward over the first of more than 46,000 yards that lie ahead. | | 46,000 yards, so that's how many turns of the wheels? |
| The wheelchair athletes' London Marathon is underway.
This is followed after a while by the London Marathon elite women , including world and Olympic champions and the fastest long distance runners the world has seen.
Afterwards come the London Marathon elite men . Each and every one of them will be racing to win, to take home the large cash prizes, to run the London Marathon faster than it has ever been run. Or achieve their own personal best time. Or all of the above!
The final group to start the London Marathon comprises more than 30,000 others ranging from talented club runners to grannies running their first London Marathon, or indeed their first Marathon. They range from the fun runners to the cuddly bears, waiters complete with trays of drinks, the pantomime horses, crocodiles and every kind of shape, size and oddity it's possible to imagine.
By the time they cross the London Marathon finishing line between just over two hours and, in some cases two weeks later, they will have tested their bodies almost to destruction.
Some will say "never again", others will start planning for the next year's London Marathon. All will have a massive sense of achievement and nobody will ever forget the London Marathon experience.
Certainly, none will forget the cheers of half a million people lining the streets encouraging and willing them on when their bodies are screaming for them to stop.
I t takes people of vision to create things that are truly worthwhile.
One such person was a former Olympic champion called Chris Brasher . In 1979 , shortly after completing the New York Marathon , Brasher wrote:
"To believe this story you must believe that the human race be one joyous family, working together, laughing together, achieving the impossible. Last Sunday, in one of the most trouble-stricken cities in the world, 11,532 men and women from 40 countries in the world, assisted by over a million black, white and yellow people, laughed, cheered and suffered during the greatest folk festival the world has seen."
For many, the New York Marathon was about a race. In Brashers mind it was a lot more, as his words clearly show. Olympic champions are, by definition, not quitters, and, inspired by the New York event, Brasher set about organising an equivalent event in London.
So it was, on the 29th March 1981 , 6,747 runners lined up at Blackheath , in south east London for the start of the first London Marathon , 6,255 of them crossing the finishing line on Constitution Hill , by Buckingham Palace over the next six hours or more.
By the 2008 race, 34,497 people crossed the finishing line, the biggest field since the the London Marathon began.
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|  | | | The London Marathon participants raise huge amounts of money for charity, and is reputed to be the l argest annual fund raising event in the world , the 2006 runners raising over £41.5 million for charity.
Since the London Marathon's inception the runners have raised £315 million for charity.
The first wheelchair London Marathon was held in 1983 bringing home to the world the cruel fallacy of stigmatising disabled people and athletes.
The London Marathon course itself starts at three different points on Blackheath and drops down into Greenwich close to the River Thames where it circumnavigates the dry dock of the tea cipper, Cutty Sark at 6½ miles.
The course then heads west tracking the River Thames to Surrey Quays , in Rotherhithe and Jamaica Road , Bermondsey before crossing the Thames at Tower Bridge at around 12 miles.
The London Marathon course turns east again along The Highway through Wapping to the Isle of Dogs , before returning back along The Highway passing the Tower of London at 22 ½ miles.
At this point, many London Marathon runners claim to hit 'the wall' , the point where the body tells you it's had enough, but those who can get past this point follow the River Thames west along the Embankment up to the Houses of Parliament .
Here, the course turns toward St James's Park Buckingham Palace , finishing finally in The Mall.
For the 'anaraks', the London Marathon is the only Marathon course in the world that is run in two hemispheres , both the East and West, as the full course crosses the Meridian line in Greenwich. | | A grateful drink from a volunteer | We're sure that Chris Brasher wasn't contemplating this curiousity as he returned to London from the New York Marathon so many years ago.
He did actually believe that, at a given point in time, with sufficient organisation, the world could be brought together as one joyous family, working, laughing and, indeed, achieving the impossible.
He not only believed it, but he acheived it.
And Brasher's legacy is there for all to see and enjoy!
Every year, on one spring morning in Blackheath, the London Marathon runners, of all abilities and hues, nervously lace up their trainers, check their watches and shake hands with their competitors.
And prepare for what might well be the greatest challenge of their lives! |
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