London Marathon Ballot Results this week! Are you hoping for a place?

If you are a runner like me, you will have not failed to notice that the London Marathon 2020 Ballot Results are due out the week commencing 7th October. 

Last year I spotted this meme on facebook and it is doing the rounds again! 

Basically there will be lots and lots of disappointed people who didn’t get a place. They will all be discussing this on social media for the entire week, if not longer!

The reason that so many are going to be disappointed is all in the statistics. 

·     There are 40,000 places

·     6000 of those places are allocated to “good for age” runners. 

·     414,168 runners from within the UK and overseas entered the ballot for the London Marathon 2019. 

So as you can see. The odds are not great! 

The ballot is not the only way to get a place. 

·     British Athletics Club places. 

Registered clubs can apply for London Marathon places. Up to 4 places can be  allocated to a club depending on how many registered athletes they have on their books. The bigger the club, the more places they are given. It is up to each individual club as to how they decide who gets the place. The club I am a member of (Maidenhead Athletic Club) does their own ballot. You have to show proof that you entered the official ballot and were unsuccessful to have your name in the hat. It’s quite good odds really. Much better than the official ballot!  

·     Good For Age places

This is for FAST people! To be eligible for a good for age place, you need to have achieved a qualifying time between 1st January 2018 and 6th August 2019. There are 6000 good for age places available for the 2020 London Marathon. 3000 of each gender. 

 For more information on good for age times click here. 

·     Championship Entries 

These are for properly FAST people! You have to be a member of a British Athletics associated Athletic Club and you have to have achieved a super fast time in a marathon or half marathon from 1st January 2018. The times are for a full marathon sub 2:45 for men and sub 3:15 for women. The half times are 1:15 for men and sub 1:30 for women. These are dream times for me so I don’t have a chance of achieving this! 

·     Charity Entry 

When I ran the London Marathon in 2017, I had secured a charity place long before the ballot was announced. I had to pledge to raise £2000 for my chosen charity which was Tommy’s – the baby charity. I had to fill in an application form explaining why I wanted to run for Tommy’s and what I was planning to do to ensure that I hit my fundraising target. 

For the last 13 years, the London Marathon has held the world record for the most money raised by an annual single day charity fundraising event. 

In 2019, £66.4 million was raised for charity by participants in the London Marathon. That is such a staggering amount! In fact it smashed the previous year’s amount by over £2 million!

It was brilliant running for Tommy’s – the charity means a lot to me and knowing that I was raising money for such a good cause really helped to get me through some hard and lonely, long runs! The charity was very supportive and that was also lovely. 

I actually smashed my fundraising target of £2000 and ended up with £6737.89 which was just unbelievable! Thank you to all my supporters! I couldn't have done it without you! 

What happens if you still don’t get in? 

If you are really keen to do a marathon but you were unlucky in the ballot, unsuccessful in your club ballot, not fast enough for Good For Age or Championship place and can’t commit to fundraising – why not look for another marathon? 

London is iconic of course but there are some other equally amazing events out there in stunning locations. 

Check out this Runner’s World list of 26 alternative UK marathons and enter one instead? I quite fancy the Liverpool Rock N Roll Marathon – I’ve heard there is loads of support and it has a great atmosphere. 

Anyway, I wish you all good luck! I shall also have my fingers crossed for myself and I hope that I receive a “You’re In” Magazine in the post next week!