Trevor writes
In the starting area at the Chicago Marathon in October, I had a conversation with an American runner who said that he had a sure way of getting a ballot place for London. What was that? Well, he had heard that if you donate your entry fee, then your name went into a second ballot for some extra places. This was bound to be successful. Yes, but that just means you have a one in thousand chance, not one in two thousand. Nothing is sure in a ballot. My club in London gets four places, and five years in a row I was one of max twelve people who qualified and I still didn’t get a place. One year I was one of five for four places. Yes, he sighed, but my problem was that I was not thinking positive thoughts!
I wasn’t at the Christmas Party, because the original plan was to be in Telford for the 10k on Sunday morning. It was a Masters qualifying race and Din was going to try and qualify by running, not via a lottery. Wisely, we called off Telford: partly because of the snow and - 5˚ temperatures, but mainly because Avanti trains couldn’t guarantee getting us there and back. So we volunteered for Junior Parkrun at a frozen Osterley. I was tail walker. The regulation tail at Osterley is heavy, hard to run in, and on a cold day all the kids there wanted to run. So started my London Marathon 2023 training!
The formal 16-week training cycle starts on 2nd January, but as well as the 2k tail walking, I have already started to pre-prepare. London will be my 10th running marathon. They have all been eventful, and during these blogs, I will probably share stories and details of what I did well and what I did badly. This marathon, however, feels special: not because it is the 10th or because it’s London, but because I have a place instead of other runners in the club who are as, if not more, deserving. The journey to the start line in Greenwich will be made with that in mind.