Is anyone looking forward to the Marathon tomorrow?

[PassingStranger]

I am.🌝

Is it just luck of the draw if you get a place?

There are several ways of getting a place for the general public.

• You can qualify outright based on your running times if you are a competitive runner of sufficient calibre (championship places)
• If you have good times but not championship level, you can go into a selection with other people of your age and sex ('good for age' places).
• You can go into the general public ballot (chances of success are apparently about 3% based on entrants vs subscribers).
• Affiliated running clubs get an allocation of places (it is up to the club how they distribute them amongst members).
• You can get a charity place which would involve a fundraising commitment to a charity that had places (charities would obviously have their own selection criteria for their places) - this is how the vast majority of places are allocated.
• The corporate sponsors of the race get an allocation of places, if you happen to work for a company that's a sponsor

Invited places go to celebrities and of course the elite runners.

There also used to be places allocated to public sector organisations who helped with race eg - TfL, Met police, London boroughs the route goes through. Not sure if that is still the case.

No idea about that, but our parkrun gets a place allocated because the Run Director puts together a squad of volunteers to help on the baggage trucks every year. The RD asks all the volunteers if they want to go in the draw for the free place and he then pulls a name out of a hat (more or less literally). I imagine there are a few more like this. Not many out of 57000 or however many it was took part yesterday!

I've remembered as well, there are a handful (and dwindling) number of places allocated to people who've run in every single London Marathon since it started in 1981 - the 'ever presents'. If they miss a year, they lose their place. There were 12 of them left this year.