Written by Phil Cairns
Happy ballot winners photobombed by social sec!
“You got a ballot place!!”
I had an inkling this was going to happen.
It’s been a long road getting here. 13 unsuccessful attempts at the London Marathon ballot, plus a handful of similarly fruitless entries into the Eagles club ballot. I’d begun to think London Marathon wasn’t destined to happen for me. But as soon as I realised I had a clash and wasn’t going to be able to make the Eagles Christmas party to be present for the draw, I thought, ‘Well of course this will be the year my name gets pulled out.’
So when Liz Ainsworth’s excitable WhatsApp message arrived, it prompted a wry smile. Followed by a massive, excitable grin. Maybe even a fist pump. FINALLY!!!
But hot on the heels of my initial elation arrived a little chill of trepidation, as I contemplated what this actually meant.
London will be my eighth marathon. See if you can spot the pattern: Dublin - Loch Ness - Marine Corps Marathon (Washington DC) - San Sebastian – Berlin – Florence – Yorkshire.
Got it yet?
That’s right. They’re all autumn marathons.
This didn’t happen by design. I signed up for some of these because they were places I wanted to visit; some because I liked the look of the race; and some because other Eagles were going and I thought it would be a fun weekend away.
But at a certain point, I became conscious a pattern had emerged and reflected on why. The answer was pretty clear:
Fundamentally, I am a massive wimp.
I’m a fair-weather runner. I like training over the warmer summer months for a nice, cool autumn marathon.
It’s the reason this Eagle goes into semi-hibernation over the winter, opting for runs that start and finish at my front door, rather than travelling to club runs and waiting around in the cold till they start. It’s the reason I only tend to grace the early season cross-country fixtures, when it’s still possible to get a tan on Wormwood Scrubs. And it’s the reason I’ve never entered a spring marathon.
This strategy hasn’t always been plain sailing. Berlin in 2018 was a challenge, the earliest of the autumn marathons I’ve raced, and off the back of that crazy heatwave summer when temperatures barely dipped below 30° in July and August while I was attempting the hard yards of training. (Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Berlin is the only marathon I’ve truly hit the wall in, walking stretches of mile 25. The difficulty of training in such balmy temps meant I perhaps went into it undercooked).
But for the most part, summer training for autumn marathons has served me well, and my only motivation for changing that was the thought of finally ticking off my hometown marathon.
Nonetheless I woke up on December 9th, the Monday morning after the Christmas party, feeling a tingle of excitement. After not running a marathon in 2024 as I’d been focusing on other life stuff, and having just emerged from a heavy cold which prevented any running for three weeks, I felt excited to get going.
BBC 6 Music breakfast show was on as I was having my morning coffee, and they were soliciting contributions to their regular People’s Pinboard feature, where listeners can send in titbits of news - new jobs, marriages, babies, new enterprises of any description – to be read out and celebrated on air. ‘What better way to thank the Eagles and announce the commencement of training?’ I thought, and fired off a WhatsApp message host Nick Grimshaw duly read out:
“Hi to Phil, and congratulations to Phil in Acton as well, who just won a ballot place in the 2025 London Marathon in my running club Ealing Eagles Christmas party this weekend. So today is day 1 of marathon training. Wish me luck!
“Good luck, Phil, you can do it if anyone can,” Grimshaw exhorted, before adding: “Perfect timing to start marathon training, 3 degrees or whatever it is.”
Well, exactly.