London Marathon: Dreams of pace, PBs and three magical digits

Numbers are important to runners. We fixate on times, on pace, on minutes per mile, we dream of personal bests. And in the weeks leading up to a marathon, that preoccupation slips over into mild obsession: training sessions are logged, workouts are worked out, Strava is scrutinised, Garmin is mined for gems. And hovering above it all are those three magical digits: 26.2.

In my case, I’ve gone metric and turned the famous mileage into kilometres: 42 (the distance is 42.195km to be precise). The reason I’ve done this is that this will be my 42nd marathon, and the numeric neatness of running 42km 42 times is just too appealing to pass up on. It will also be the seventh time I’ve run the London marathon. The other 35 times I have run the distance have been everywhere from the New Forest to New York, from the trails of the Lake District to the cramped horizons of my small urban garden – I was one of the cabin-fever runners who joined in the trend of “backyard marathons” during Covid’s lockdown and measured out 3,516 lengths of our 12-metre garden (I did half clockwise and half the other way). My wife made a finishing line out of loo paper and our neighbours cheered me on from their side of the fence.

The first full marathon I finished was in London in 1991. In those days, running fever hadn’t quite gripped the world in the way it has now and if you wanted a place you simply entered and usually got in. I seem to remember the entry fee was £15 – considering how phenomenally oversubscribed the event now is it still feels like great value for £79.

On the train out to that first start at Blackheath, I nervously chatted to a fellow runner who told me he had done the race the year before and was back to do it again. I was stunned. It had never occurred to me that anyone would ever do a marathon more than once. This was our Everest. Our moment to be everyday heroes. It was one and done. And yet here was someone doing it all again. Little did I know that I’d soon get the bug and that event would be the start of my life’s most enduring pastime, a passion that has filled the years since with amazing adventures and fantastic friendships.

That guy on the train gave me two tips: first, be sure to look around as you cross the line because you don’t want to share your finish photo with some fancy-dress competitor (in the end I crossed the line just in front of a bow-tied waiter carrying a tray of drinks, but it’s still one of my favourite pictures); and second, don’t forget to enjoy it. And it’s that advice that has made all the difference. Marathons are hard, of course they are, but they are also the most enjoyable and life-affirming way to spend a Sunday. The colour, the stories, the drama, the shared camaraderie, the collective endeavour can be highly addictive.

I have a horrible feeling that this race will be one of my hardest. I turned 60 last summer and haven’t run a proper marathon since 2019. Back then I seemed to bounce into them, now I ricochet between injuries like a pinball. One week it’s my heel, the next it’s my hip. There’s no telling when or where an unexpected niggle is going to crop up. I used to run every day, but now I need a few days’ rest between even short runs. I used to love jogging in the morning but now my body doesn’t get going until the evening. In my mind, I’m still fleet-footed, but I know when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a shop window that I’m trudging along in lead-filled boots.

I’ll keep shuffling on. I looked up the average finishing time for a man in his 60s and it said 4 hours and 45 minutes is pretty respectable. That’s more than an hour and a half slower than my best. But one thing I know for sure is that I will still savour every agonising minute.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to meet the great Paula Radcliffe at a promotional event. Someone in the group asked her what she thought about when she was racing? “Nothing,” she replied with a smile. “I try not to think about anything. I just count 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4… over and over again.”

I told you numbers really matter.

Photography by Andy Hall for The Observer