Talkback: Virgin London Marathon 2012: You're Not In

Found other marathons before....fed up of applying now....must be four/five years on the trot now....apply, get your hopes up, must be this year, the magazine's here....COMMISERATIONS!

Not again. Fed up.

I ran for charity this year after a few failed ballot attempts. I'll admit its a hassle essentially paying £1200 for a marathon place and I wouldnt want to go that route every year, but the charities have taken over this race and it makes it hard for the amateur runner to get involved unless they are close to elite speeds or good for age.

I was hoping maybe there would be a second marathon in london in 2012, as its olympic year, that finishes  in the stadium and maybe follows some of the olympic route.

Even if you have a charity place, you still have to pay £100 yourself when you "buy" the place, plus all the travel/accomodation costs to and from the race AND the expo that its probably cheaper to fly over to amsterdam/berlin/dublin/edinburgh and do those.  Throw in the fact that with a charity place you'll be starting in the massive pack at the slower start, its not really a PB race.....that being said the buzz from the support was amazing. 

 And whilst clubs have places, they are usually only given to their fastest runners. So anyone outside of amateur elite is probably not the person for london any more :/

GFA on the VLM web site.

Think it's 3:15 for men and 3:45 for women under 49.

Oh yeah and clubs don't nec. give places to their fastest runners, some hold ballots, others open offers on merrit. (eg if you represent the club a lot at other races you may get offered a place).

http://www.virginlondonmarathon.com/marathon-centre/enter-virgin-london-marathon/good-for-age-entries/

I'd be very surprised if any clubs' places went to their fastest runners.  If you're fast enough to ''compete'' for your club in any sense, i.e. in the England Athletics national championship, then you would have qualified for a Champs place, which won't eat into the club's allocation. 

After that I can't imagine any clubs would favour, say, a 3:50 runner over a 4:30 runner.  If they did, I'd be pretty miffed if I was the slower runner!

Hi Everyone

 I've recently started working for a disabled children's charity in Hampshire and have just discovered we have 10 places for next year's marathon, due to our allocation not being used in the past.  www.roseroadchildrensappeal.org.uk, we have no registration fee but the usual £1500 sponsorship, please get in touch if you're interested!  We intend to go all out next year and really look after our runners & offer them a whole package of support!