When you're watching the VLM on TV this year, will you be slightly bitter?

Maybe the analogy is somewhere in the middle 

Maybe just a normal car then your anaology would fit.......

but London marathon is one of thousands of marathons each year and they are on every year so not equivalent to  a classic car one of its kind.......

and yes if someone won the fiesta and wanted to set light to it as that is the thing that would bring them most pleasure then fair enough.......people burn money everyday

For heavens sake David, it's only a marathon.

I've heard that none of the others are the same length.

Spend enough time on here the day after VLM and you'll wonder if VLM was the right length ("My Garmin says that I ran 26.5 miles - was the course accurately measured?")...

I get in every year through GFA or Champ start.

Sorry, just wanted to piss people off even more

Joolska, I'm guessing you're running again this year?

David Falconer 3 wrote (see)

Screamapillar - well I disagree, its a bit like I could burn a 10 pound note in front of Great Ormond Street Hospital .... its my money, Im free to do what I want with it ..... but we both know that I could have put that to better use. Likewise, there are lots of marathons run every year. If they really want to p..s about, why not enter one of those?

Oh don't be a knob David. You apply, if by chance you get in, you pay your money and you run, walk, skip or do as you please to get to the finish. Unless you are GFA or have a  Golden Bond place, all you've done is got lucky in a lottery. Nobody has any less right  to be there than anybody else.

And, like "them", YOU could also run any other marathon if you wanted to. So why don't you just do that and quit whingeing?

...some clubs have more than they can use and give them away!

LIVERBIRD wrote (see)

Come to Muddy Wilkie!
I'll bring wine

If the weather looks OK, I will.  I don't like coming into London at the weekends, though.  Especially when there are even MORE people around than normal and the transport system is made even LESS user-friendly than usual by closing stations near the route!

Our club place is usually contested by only two or three people, and in ANY club ballot you're likely to have better odds than the VLM ballot.

Wilkie - I live the other side of London so getting to Mudchute involves national rail, tube, DLR. I was expecting it to be a nightmare last year but the journey in the morning was remarkably stress-free. Frequent trains, helpful staff and volunteers at every station, well signposted and not many other people on the trains.

It isn't one of the popular stations for the start line, so that probably helps. (It goes get busier going home, especially if you leave when all the spectators start to move from Docklands to the Mall)

Xine, it's not getting TO Mudchute that's the issue, it's getting away later on when I want to leave.

I was at Mudchute a couple of years ago, and getting to the finish (from there or any other place I've ever watched from) is hideous.  You can get the DLR into Tower Gateway easily enough, but after that.... 

 In fact, my Squeeze, who was running that year, beat me to Trafalgar Square, even though I left Mudchute as soon as he'd gone by.

Oh, and TfL always diddle me, because I have a PAYG Oyster, and although I shouldn't pay any more than the cost of a Travelcard for my various DLR and tube travel, I end up with a penalty because they directly people out through a side exit at Embankment so that I can't 'touch out'. 

The more I think about this, the more I remember why I don't like going!

I did get to snog BB at Mudchute one year................