and the winner is…. London!

Well, on true London marathon day form it began raining, but honestly - that’s a good thing, once you get moving from Greenwich, you need that light spray to keep you cool, and anyway, after about 11ish it soon brightened up!

Yesterday in training for the big london hotels run on June 1st I ran 20 miles across the nearby forest, it was a liberating run. This time (pop-pickers) I was mainly listening to the Doors, the stones, and quite randomly (for me anyway) Glen Campbell (I know, I think by listening to Glen Campbell AND using the phrase ‘pop pickers’ I can safely extract myself from the ‘young’ bracket, and it doesn’t matter how much txt spk I use 2 b spr trendy (trendy?! ha, another giveaway – don’t tell my rents), err, where was I?

Seeing the London marathon is an astonishing spectacle & hugely overwhelming. Firstly on marathon morning – you gotta get there! Me I always travelled in from London so this meant getting onto the train at London Bridge, the great news is that a train leaves every few minutes… bad news is every single one of those sardine cans is jam packed, albeit with friendly fellow runners. So you squeeze on the train, swap a few angst-ridden thoughts with virgin runners (or scare them by saying you’ve done the marathon loads, either way), then 10 mins later you walk (passing the Novotel London Greenwich of course – hi guys!), and then you find your start zone. There are millions of people everywhere which is great, setting the amazing atmosphere already, and as per the advice of all marathon runners…. you got to go to the loo! The queues of course are a mile long, but let’s leave that part there! You jumble into the start zone, and while you wait there for 15mins or so the same thoughts always go through your mind….

What am I doing here?
I haven’t done enough training
I’ve got 26.2 miles in front of me
I am dying for a weeee
Everyone else looks fit and has shiny expensive trainers
Breathe breathe breathe….

and then you’re off, everyone’s cheering, you feel good, you feel elated, man – this is going to be a great chilled run, I might even do my personal best, ah this is a breeze…… and you haven’t even passed the start line yet – that’s another 5 mins away!

At first you’re milling through the streets of Woolwich & Greenwich, it’s all very chilled, there’s a couple of cracking pubs initially that you pass, usually they’re blaring out goodwill messages on a PA, though I do recall in ‘07 there was an Elvis singing his choons on the top of the pub roof – classy.

6 miles and you’re juusstt about passing Greenwich observatory & the Cutty Sark, the streets are crammed here full of spectators, charities are cheering you on, children are handing you out jelly babies, oranges, sausages, all sorts of stuff, and then you head on up to Deptford & Rotherhithe. This is a long road (Salter Road) but wide ‘n nice, and there’s a cracking shower spray to run through. It’s around this point (mile 9ish I think) that you begin to think, yeah, I can do this, I have trained well, and loads of people have sponsored me, am not gonna let them down, and then before you know it – you’re at Tower Bridge – the almost half-way point – this is a great point on the route. Running over Tower Bridge, you (or I) feel proud. You feel proud to be alive, proud to be running, proud to be in London/a Londoner, my god, you could be prime minister if you wanted to be, anything is now possible. The noise on Tower Bridge is immense, you are a hero, it is a fact, but then….

You turn right en-route to the Docklands (yet you know that the end of the route is left – turn around turn around!), and then disaster! for the first time on the route you get to see the mega-athletes, the Paula Radcliffes running the opposite way towards the finish – they’ve already done 21 miles, and you – you’ve not even gone passed the 14 mile mark AND you’ve got to do a while big b*stard run around the whole of the Docklands. This is where you need a boost, the biggest boost in fact. For a few marathons (ahem) I did, I ran for Cancer Research UK, and they have a few main roadside support bases along the way, I think one of these was on mile 15, the cheer they give you when you run past them is all you need to give you the all-important motivation boost (love you guys), but still 6 or 7 miles round the docks… there’s no getting away from it, you just got to get your head down, turn up the i-pod and pray that James Brown will get you through.

Somehow, you emerge out of the docklands! You pass the old mint building, you glimpse a site of St Katherine’s Dock down some side streets, then, lllaaaaaaa, like the sun screaming out from behind the clouds you see Tower Bridge again, but it is not like before, this time it is even brighter, even bigger, even better, because – you’re only 5 miles from the end baby, only 5 miles after those 21 – easy peasy, or is it

No, it’s not. “The Wall” if it happens to you, usually happens here. You stop dead. You don’t want to, but nothing moves. The crowd are cheering at fever pitch, your emotions are playing havoc in your mind, you want to cry (I did once), you want to dissappear, you want to do anything but just stand there as 1000s fly by you, but you can’t – you’ve hit the wall.

Somehow… you scrape yourself off the floor, your legs somehow begin to move again, somehow you don’t feel the pain, and somehow just thinking of why you are doing this (your family, your friends, the loved ones you have lost, your sponsors, the charity you’re running for, the pain & suffering in the world that you’re making a small contribution to making right, the camaraderie of the runners telling you to ‘come on son, nearly the end’, the spectators screaming & willing you to go on, they’re standing there all day in the rain supporting you, London for relentlessly raising millions and providing an incredible day for the whole city) spurs you on to somehow getting to the holy finish line.

The last mile always seems to be the longest (errr, well it is actually 0.2miles longer) away, Buckingham Palace seems furter away than normal, but seriously – this is where the crowd sing you magically to the end. You fly through the finish line, if you’re a first timer you cry (I did  – all the year’s training, the highs and lows, it all comes out when you cross that line) and then you say you will never do it again (but you do the next year & do it even better because now you have learnt how to improve & the magic of the day is so immense you cannot imagine NOT doing it).

Phew, I think that may well just about describe the run on the day.

It is the greatest day in London by miles (geddit?) and I will always be proud to be a part of it.

Congrats to Julian Payne, GM of the Threadneedles Hotel, who completed the London Marathon today in 4h 2mins, he’s a true ledge.

The ballot for the 2011 London marathon opens on 4th May 2010.

Happy St George’s Day London

Happy St George’s day London. On the train in this morning I was trying to think of other famous George’s; George Michael of course came to mind, Georgie Best, and of course the #1, George from Rainbow. Only last week I was at the George Pub (part of the Andaz hotel) thinking I bet this place is rammed on St George’s day – and before you can puff the magic dragon…. here is the day itself.

It is also the Virgin London Marathon on Sunday. Being a veteran runner, I say with pure conviction that it is the greatest day in London’s calendar, the atmosphere, the emotions, the camaraderie, it is immense, and hugely inspiring & overwhelming. If you can go – go – when I was first a spectator back in 2003 it inspired me to run, and I’ve been running ever since (I just wanna thank my producer, my manager…).

The legend that is Julian Payne from the Threadneedle’s hotel in the city is running on Sunday (see Julian on the left) everyone here at the lastminute.com team wished Julian the very best  – we’re expecting a personal best buddy. See you sunday.