Is it really possible?

Gun vs chip times - an interesting one. I know where you are coming from parkrunfan. When I did my first sub 3hrs I made sure that it was both on chip and gun time. London used to give both your chip and gun time. They no longer do this, the official results only show the chip time so not sure how this stacks with your "a race can only be on gun times"

Agree with kittenkat, if you put a predicted time of 3 ish you will be on the Fast GFA by definition and it will take you less than 20 seconds to cross the line not 20 mins.

Elite and Championship times are published according to gun time rather than chip.  I guess the organisers are confident enough that the London Marathon winner will come from the elite starters, such that the chip times for everyone else aren't going to be an issue.  Same goes for the Championship itself; you're not eligible to run for a place unless you start from the Championship start, with its associated gun timing.

If anyone manages to win the race starting from Zone 1 I'll buy them a Kitkat.

You're a tight b_gger Phil. Least you could do for someone wading past all the fun runners in their Big Ben and deep sea diver outfits, who then manage to get in front of the cream of world marathoning talent and beat them home... is to buy them a drink of Lucozade AND a Mars Bar.

Back to the OP's question. You never know how much you can improve until you try. I was a 40+ relatively inexperienced marathon runner a few years back with a PB of 3h24 and increased my training mileage by about 40% per race. I went down to 3h12 then 2h58 in just over a year. I've improved a couple of times since then with roughly the same training effort so it would suggest that unless I try something very different, the improvements will dry up. Guess it all depends on how much you want it. Not sure i want to keep getting up to run 25km before work at 05:30 on a snowy winter morning.

I have just checked my London time on 'RunBritain' and in fact they do have the gun times - interesting to know how they get them because as far as I know they are not published in the official results. Apparently, took me 16 secs to cross the start line which seems about right. Would have been peeved if this had cost me a position in the rankings but fortunately it hasn't (yet?)

Its hard to understand why people think Gun times are 'unfair'.

In effect, this is saying that it is unfair that faster runners start higher up the field.

By the same reckoning it must be unfair in Formula 1 that faster drivers in qualifying start higher up the grid, it must be unfair that Premiership football teams dont have to play in all the qualifying and first and second rounds of the FA Cup and it must be unfair that seeded tennis players usually get byes in the early rounds of tournaments.

In all cases the starting positions have been earned, there is no unfairness involved.

And it must be remembered that the vast majority of London Marathons have been run without chip times being available. There were never any claims that it was unfair that it took 20 minutes to cross the start line when chips didnt exist so how has it become unfair now?

And in a similar vein to Tricky's example about how you may be able to improve more than you think, it is worth remembering the example of a chap (one of my early inspirations as it happens) who ran his first marathon in 3:23. His next four marathons then came in at 3:06:37, 2:59:41, 3:06:37, 3:00:05.

From those initial five marathons how much further improvement do you reckon this chap had in him?

Well, he went on to improve his times all the way down to 2:10 and represented GB in the Olympic Marathon.....so you never know, there may be more time gains left to be had than you initially think

I have an idea who this is, would that runner by any chance have run one of those marathons the day after playing rugby? Mind you, the same runner once said that anybody could be world class. I noted the word 'anybody', it wasn't 'everybody'. 'Anybody' implies that you might be world class but, 'unless you give it a go, you'll never find out'.

Hi all, sorry to hijack this thread but I thought someone on here might have an idea on something thats bugging me....

If i can do 3hr 10 in Brighton next year (gotta reasonable chance having just done a 1.27half) and hit the London GFA target what are my odds of me actually getting in. I'm guessing that they only have limited GFA places and that all those that qualify and apply don't get lucky. Any thoughts peeps?

cheers, sounds good. All the motivation i need for the hard winter of training ahead!