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| Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten Percent Legal Recruitment with his lovely medal |
On 26th April 2026 I completed the London Marathon. Big deal you might think. In fact before I completed the marathon this was exactly what I thought. Its not such a great achievement these days; most people run a marathon at some point and its not that far anymore. Eddie Izzard managed 28 consecutive marathons and didn't seem too badly scarred for life.
Having completed the marathon, I can say that it is tough, particularly on a hot day in London. The marathon this year was seriously hot - 20+ degrees celsius.
These are my random thoughts on London Marathon running:
1. You must be completely crazy to want to do this for fun.
2. I am never doing a marathon again. Once was quite enough. As someone said to me post-marathon - I have run two marathons today, my first and my last.
3. Taking sandals to wear at the end of the race was a life saver.
4. Walking down stairs after running 26.2 miles is not easy.
5. The training involved in marathon running is way too time consuming - who seriously has the time to go out every weekend and run 10-20 miles? Not forgetting the races you do on the way to marathon weekend. I travelled to Cannock Chase, Milton Keynes and Helsby in Cheshire to complete my training plan. Two of these races were completed in freezing cold temperatures.
6. Starting slowly is a good idea, and definitely something to do, but if you are not feeling well, you could probably start crawling and feel just as terrible by the end of the race.
7. Don't forget to factor in walking 8,000 steps before starting the marathon on the day. You have to get across London and then walk up a hill to the start line. The previous day you will probably do between 12,000 and 20,000 steps picking up your race bib from East London.
8. If you don't like loud noise, don't run the London Marathon. The noise generated by the crowd is amazing. I have to confess to not being a fan of running along to music blasting in my ears and people shouting at me.
9. The marathon is hilly. My strava calculated 419 feet of elevation and it felt a lot more at times. The route is certainly not completely flat, thats for sure.
10. Although I have the latest Apple Watch, my watch was not very helpful after about 5 miles. It would not show me my pace after this - just seemed to be stuck on a 8 min 30 sec miles, even though I knew this was wrong. I gave up looking at it after 13 miles. GPS seems to struggle when high buildings are involved with lots of people.
11. Don't look at the people collapsing on the side of the road as you run - its very off-putting.
12. Don't try to overtake anyone running slightly faster than you. They will overtake you about 20 mins later.
13. Don't run up the side of the street unless you like high fiving lots of people.
14. Running around the Cutty Sark section of the marathon is a bit like being in the middle of a rugby scrum - its very congested.
15. Make sure you find out where your supporters will be standing so you can reserve some energy to wave enthusiastically at them.
16. I was told not to bother training more than 18 miles because, and I quote, "your legs will carry you the last 8 miles without thinking about it." What a load of nonsense. My legs virtually stopped working after 20 miles, and I really wished I had run at least one full marathon before completing the London Marathon to get the 'miles in my legs' feeling of 26 miles.
17. Be happy with your result - you finished a marathon! I was a bit depressed after finishing because I knew I could have easily run it at least 10-15 minutes faster, if not more. But I am happy because I have done the marathon, ticked the box and am never doing it again. Oh, and we raised & donated over £30,000 to Cure Parkinson's, one of our most heavily supported charities through the Ten Percent Foundation.
18. Think about why you are running the Marathon whilst you are doing it - it does give you a bit of a boost.
19. If you are the marathon organisers, why on earth are you not handing out goodie bags at the end? I was bitterly disappointed not to get at least one revolting coconut milk carton, or a can of beer I'd never heard of.
Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment and a non-practising Solicitor. Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment provides online Legal Recruitment for Solicitors, Legal Executives, Licensed Conveyancers, Legal Cashiers, Fee Earners, Support Staff, Managers and Paralegals. Visit our Website to search our Vacancy Database.
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