Today is not the London Marathon. The real London Marathon is in a few weeks time, but today was the second annual ‘Not The London Marathon’ held in Bushy Park on the parkrun course. The event was devised by Roger Wilson in 2009 where he described it as follows…
- Start around 9am
- Start at the Bushy parkrun current finish line.
- Run the Bushy parkrun course as many times as you like, looping round the start line and finishing line trees.
- Anyone can join in and run any number of laps at any time at any speed, either alone or in groups.
- No official timing, time yourself if you’d like.
- Friends and supporters congregate at the parkrun finish line to give encouragement and support, or maybe just enjoy an alfresco picnic/refreshments and a social.
- People can run as many laps as they like.
- It’s Not the London Marathon, cos it’s not a race, it’s not a marathon distance for everyone, and anyone can join in anytime.
In 2009 Sharon and I took part along with about 15 or so others and had a great time. Today we did it all again… At about 9am a group of 25 of us lined up at the start (ok, so there’s 24 in the photo, but Tom Morgan turned up too late for the photo!) and started our watches. A few other runners joined in during the first ‘lap.’
Not The London Marathon 2010
After a (pleasant if you can call it that) 75 mile bike ride on Saturday my legs were in need of a little stretch so I planned to run 10km - two laps of the Bushy parkrun course. Because of my dodgy left foot (read about it elsewhere on the blog) and visits to other parkrun’s I’d not run in Bushy Park since the 1st January. It was lovely to be back in the park and oh I love it being so flat!
After setting off I watched the fast runners head into the distance whereas I settled in to a moderate long run pace for me (about 7:30 minute miling). One lap down…. two laps down…. and then I decided to do a third. After crossing the finish ‘line’ after the third lap and heading back to where some of the others were watching/supporting my GPS had clocked me at 9.5 miles in just over 71 minutes (7:28 miling). Lovely. This is the furthest that I’ve run in almost four months so I’m really pleased with how it went. My 5k parkrun times were approximately 24:04, 23:08 and 22:27.
Not The London Marathon is turning into a little fixture in our unofficial racing calendar. Just don’t remind Roger about his idea to do a 12 hour version later in the Summer!