Race report by Dave Phillips.
What a huge event this was in all respects. Over 37,000 runners and quite simply hundreds of thousands lining the route from start to finish banked 4 or 5 deep on each side of the roads. Simply manic and if you did think of walking the crowds wouldn’t let you and the ever flowing waves of runners would shove you along.
I’ve done this about 26 times now and this was as good as they get so well done to Virgin.
The Massey mob below started on all of the 3 different start areas (Red, Blue and Green) so the chance of meeting up was very remote. It took a few minutes to cross the start line and at 3 miles the 3 “colours” merged where everyone joined together on one road to huge booing from their colleagues from other start areas. Great fun.
Then it was just non-stop shouting from the huge crowds all the way round-as it had been from the start line in fact.
What is good is if you have your name on your vest the crowds scream out your name so by the end thousands of well-wishers have screamed out your name so if it’s as if the world knows you. “Cum on Dave you can do it” I must have heard for every minute out there.
Well eventually after more than a few hours we were on the Embankment with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in view and of course the 25 mile mark. Then a right turn, past Buckingham Palace (didn’t hear the Queen shouting “cum on Dave”-must give her a call to find out why) and to the finishing line.
Huge medal +2nd goodie bag (got the 1st at the registration at the Excel Centre on Saturday) so job well done.
Then we had the Brain and Spine Foundation charity party in Leicester Square for the 50 of us who ran for them and food and drinks were the order of the day there. So far these runners have raised c£95,000 towards the £100k goal
All of us below were at the party and thanks to Team Phillips from Masseys I handed a cheque over to the charity for £12,000 that we had raised. So on a personal front that was my 465th marathon and £97,000 raised for the charity so the maths is simple. 35 and £3,000 to go. The latter seems the easiest!
Team Phillips Massey times (don’t know of others yet):
Angela McKay 04:50:35
David McKay 04:56:47
David Phillips 05:36:28
Nathan Bignall 03:56:05
Rachel Brock 04:27:21
Kelvin Elliot 06:06:54