Wednesday, March 28

Marathon News

Returning from my run, I found sitting on the kitchen table my copy of the official magazine of the Flora London Marathon, the Marathon News. I’ve been expecting this for a few weeks now and couldn’t wait to immerse myself in the plethora of information… 178 pages of running-geek news: Expo, Final Instructions, Training, Missing the Wall, Spectators Guide, etc. One of my favourite pieces was the Men’s Professional Athlete Identification Chart, a colour-coded guide to the 2007 men’s elite field: Gebrrselassie, Limo, Tergat, Cherono, Khannouchi, Brown, Hall and on it went… I guess I get to wear whatever I want.

I continued to flip and found the final instructions for the start. This has been an area of discussion ever since Jim found out that he didn’t qualify for elite status; where would we be starting? What was our chance at coming close to the front among the 45,000+ athletes?

151 to 1,000 are Championship competitors (blue number, white background and start at Blackheath, the Blue Start).

1,001 to 28,000 and 54,251 to 59,000 at the Blue Start.

28,001 to 33,250, the Green Start.

33,251 to 54, 250, the Red Start.

After checking my registration form, my number… 991, apparently I squeaked in with the Championship competitors… fan-bloody-tastic!

5 comments:

Thomas said...

178 pages? Christ, that's a lot. But how much of that is taken up by ads? 100?

MB said...

that's good you got a number less than 1000

Anonymous said...

Nice work. I wasn't so lucky. Number fifty four thousand, three hundred and something. I may end up running 27 miles by the time i weave in and out of everyone in front of me. Good luck over the next three weeks of training!

Love2Run said...

Yes!! That is fantastic. Like being in the 1st corral at Boston (not that I'll ever have that experience). Are you wearing Canadian colors?

Michael said...

L2R, not 100% sure what I'm going to be wearing yet. Regarding colours, yes, sort of (red, white and black). But alas, nothing like the shorts in your picture:)

Sorry to hear about your scare, yikes, nice that it has come around though.