Taking children to watch London marathon.

[Skyler]

My DH is running in the London marathon on Sunday. I am planning to travel up to at least meet him at the end. He has a charity place so we have a reception afterwards so I will be able to meet him somewhere pre-arranged. The dd's are just 4 and 2 at the end of June. Have you any top tips or ideas to make the whole thing easier or do you just think I am totally mad and I should forget it. I am staying at my Dads in Kent and the train journey is only 30 mins to Charing Cross but then what?????? How much of a nightmare will it be? I will have a Maclaren buggy with me.

Bump.

my dh has done it twice,each time we took the children.to be honest we didnt watch start and only watched end as children found it boring,so we saw daddy come over finishing line,he had his mobile so we could keep in touch!its very busy and transport enroute is a nightmare especially with children/buggy.we went shopping!atmosphere is great but too much for young children imo

We were planning to just travel up for the end. I thought we would get to London for about 12 midday. Does this sound like a good plan then. We can soak up a bit of atmosphere and then meet up with him after??

hi skyler. i am bringing ds also (2 and 5). couldn't face going down from cambridge on my own with the 2 so have luckily managed to pursuade sil and boyfriend that they would come stay with me on saturday and we go down to london together (they live in leeds). so at least i have 2 extra pairs of hands. but even then i am pretty apprehensive about it. will be trying to go to round about mile 8 (surrey quays) and then "hop" over to mile 19 (canary wharf) and then to st james park to see the finish-ish. not going to attempt getting to the finishing line as i think it may be too packed? i think you are very brave to even consider it. good luck to your dh!

yes,i cant remember times etc but really wouldnt watch it all!go shopping or picnic in park but dont tell your dh what a relaxing time youre having!lol
goodluck to him!whos he running for?

We watch each year, last year was most memorable. Me, dd then 8, and ds then 3, in the rain, cheering them on at around the 22 mile mark on Lower Thames Street. There was a steel band, not too huge a crowd so we were just single file along the barrier. Ds stood in his buggy to see or sat if he needed a rest. We watched for 3 hours and had very sore hands and throats from all the shouting and clapping (small price to pay since all those folk doing such a brill job running).
Have a fab time and good luck to all who are taking part.

Oooh thank you ladies.
He is running for the RAF Association. Is is quite exciting. I think you are right we will go to the park, soak up some atmosphere just by being in London on the day and meet him afterwards.
My sister is coming too so I will have an extra pair of hands now. I do think I would have been totally mad to do it alone.
Good Luck to anyone else involved tomorrow!

Just in case anyone ever does a search I thought I would let you know how it went. We had a fantastic day. We got the train to Charing Cross in time to walk to the finish to see/hear the elite men finishing. We walked along the edge and it was busy but not impossible with the pushchair. Atmosphere was amazing so we clapped some people in and then went to Green Park (right by the route) to have our picnic lunch and got ice creams from the kiosk where we only had to queue a short time. We went to view and cheer on at the side of the track at about the 400m to go mark and to start with we were 2 rows back but we could see and dd1 (4) was let forward to the front. DD2 was in the pushchair with a big packet of rice cakes and thankfully was sleepy and so happy to stay there. We managed to get to the front of the barrier after about half an hour as the people in front had seen their runners. We cheered and clapped for over an hour and finally saw my DH. I shouted (lots and loudly as he wasn't expecting us to be there) to him and he came over to give us a kiss before finishing. I was able to text my relatives to watch the finish and my Dad and stepmum and my Mum saw him finish on the TV!
It was such a hard race for them in the heat. Fabulous for a spectator though. We did see a few collapses near us which was scary. I was so proud of my DH and everyone who took part. What an amazing feat! I have such admiration for you all.
It took DH longer than he had hoped so we will be back next year apparently .
It was much easier for us than I expected it to be so don't be put off if you are considering going with little ones. A pram would have been hard but the Maclaren was fine. I had my sister with me though and for the ages of my children we definately needed one adult per child. What an amazing day though! Well done to anyone on here who took part.