Flora London Marathon

The London marathon was on the first weekend I was in London. I did NOT participate but part of the route was just down the road so Vasi and I checked it out for a while. It was a scorcher of a day and I believe it started quite late, at 10am. Well it seemed late considering my vast experience (I did the Auckland BMW half marathon once, which started at 6am). Anyway, I can't seem to find out how many participants there were, but in 2006 there were 48,000 so I guess prob the same number this year...




Something really cool about the London Marathon is that it's basically just a fundraising event, the biggest in the UK and arguably the biggest single fundraising event in the world (last year £41.5 million was raised!). This means that people are running for more than just getting a good time. One guy did it in 'slow motion' taking one step every 5 second. He 'raced' 10 hours a day and finished 1 week later. Crazy!

Go the purple ballerina!

The Carnival girls in Brazil have nothing on this guy! If you look closely you can see that not only has he large plumes on his head, he's also running with a feather boa!

And what about this guy? Can you imagine running for at least 2 hours (and more likely 3 or 4 hours) in a SpongeBob SquarePants costume? Sheesh!

Great atmosphere and crowd support and I must admit it started a little idea in my head about the possibility of doing a marathon myself one day... Hmmm we'll see but rest assured you'll hear about it if I ever do ;)