What an atmosphere it was again! The 42.195 kilometres from Blackheath to the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace once again proved to be an emotional rollercoaster. Even at Natalie's third and my fourth London Marathon start in a row, we were anything but bored. After the atmosphere was absolutely first-class last spring despite the rain, the London Marathon was once again at the absolute top level in this respect in 2024. Goosebumps were guaranteed, especially at Cutty Sark after eleven kilometres and on Tower Bridge after 20 kilometres. But even beyond that, there was nothing to complain about, so we would once again give the audience a straight A.

With well over 50,000 finishers, more runners crossed the finish line at the London Marathon 2024 than ever before. What an impressive figure this is becomes particularly clear when you consider that only the Paris Marathon 2024 had a few hundred more finishers. Not even the great New York City Marathon has ever had as many finishers as this year's London Marathon. And if all that wasn't impressive enough, we were also aiming for fast times and good placings at the Scottish Marathon Championships, which were held on the biggest stage in British sport for the second year running. Natalie and I got off to an aggressive start, reaching the half marathon mark around one kilometre after passing Tower Bridge earlier than ever before in a marathon. As expected, the race got tougher in the second half, so we reduced the pace a little as planned. In the end, I was able to improve my best time by 17 seconds to 2:28:35 hours and run under 2:30 hours for the fourth time. This was good enough for a very satisfactory 11th place in the Scottish Marathon Championships across all age groups.

After I crossed the finish line, the familiar wait began. I quickly had my smartphone and knew when to expect Natalie. Suffering from muscular problems at the back, she missed her best time by a good half minute, but finished in a very strong 2:51, just like last year, which earned her the bronze medal at the Scottish Marathon Championships this time after winning silver in 2023. What a day! London was once again worth a trip. We'll be back, London - in some form - always delivers after all.

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