London Marathon 2007
Today I was in one of my favourite places in the world to see the London Marathon, the world’s largest city marathon and, according to the race organisors, the world’s largest annual fundraising event. I go to London an awful lot (I used to have to go there every day when I worked there) and still love it every time I go. It’s great to be able to feel completely at ease in one of the world’s largest and busiest cities.
The Marathon is special for so many reasons. Firstly, the people actually running. It’s probably not even worth me saying it, because I’m sure you already know, but these people are amazing! Obviously, there’s a reason why they take part. For some it’s a hurdle they have to jump, a challenge that they’ve set for themselves. For everyone else, it’s for charity. This selfless act is itself in incredible. However, the most amazing part for me is they run 26 miles! 26 MILES! Today, they ran 26 miles in 24 degree warmth! It’s an incredible acheivement regardless of the reason for doing so, but add those two reasons (and those which I haven’t covered) and it’s superhuman.
The second thing that makes the London Marathon special is the spectators. Thousands of them line the route and I was kinda proud to be amoungst them. I imagine I would have been prouder to be on the route but the compassion shown by almost all of the spectators was terrific. Stangers cheering on strangers! It was great.
I’ve as usual been busy with my camera. There’s a small set of photos up on flickr as well as a short video of the action up on Vimeo. Luckily, you don’t have to go anywhere for that. It’s just above this paragraph.
