London Marathon 2016

WithCheesePlease

Bulmers74 wrote: »

Anyone else waiting to hear about GFA entry? Applied on 26th of June - 15 working days will be up this week.

Me too. Applied on June 30th and am still waiting for word back. As menoscemo said we've no reason to be refused but I'm getting antsy none the less!

Bulmers74

WithCheesePlease wrote: »

I'm getting antsy none the less!

Same as that

ooter

When I applied it said you will receive a confirmation email certainly no later than July 17th at 5pm and to call their help desk if you haven't received it by then.
0207 902 0200.

robinph

Someone else from my club has obviously not yet received their confirmation so they gave VMLM a call:

Virgin London Marathon "Good for Age" places. I have just spoken to the VLM people and it appears that they have had over 6000 applications (Far more than ever before) and have got through only 1/3 of them so far. Hence if you have not had any reply from them yet (Within 15 working days) don't worry they are working their way through them. (I did wonder if they will make it much harder next year !!!)

That is a lot of applications as there would normally only be a couple of thousand in the fast GFA, not sure on numbers in the Green GFA as they are mixed in with the celebs so you can't figure out the number sequence so easily. I'd be surprised if there is normally more than 3000 in the overall GFA category though.

I hope you lot didn't all apply 6 times each.

Clearlier

robinph wrote: »

Someone else from my club has obviously not yet received their confirmation so they gave VMLM a call:



That is a lot of applications as there would normally only be a couple of thousand in the fast GFA, not sure on numbers in the Green GFA as they are mixed in with the celebs so you can't figure out the number sequence so easily. I'd be surprised if there is normally more than 3000 in the overall GFA category though.

I hope you lot didn't all apply 6 times each.

That does suggest that at least some of the standards may be raised next year.

robinph

Clearlier wrote: »

That does suggest that at least some of the standards may be raised next year.

It's strange that the numbers have jumped quite so much though, if those 6000 are genuine times, and my guestimate at 3000'ish previously is close to the mark.

The biggest potential for an increase in numbers would be for some of the womens times where there are some fairly soft times through the age groups. If there has now been a big surge in a particular age group/ gender deciding to apply for London then that is great. I'd be surprised if there has been a major change in the number of under 40 blokes getting sub 3:05 times without VMLM people noticing though.

Although if more furriners have figured out how to apply that could cause a big surge in numbers.

Clearlier

robinph wrote: »

It's strange that the numbers have jumped quite so much though, if those 6000 are genuine times, and my guestimate at 3000'ish previously is close to the mark.

The biggest potential for an increase in numbers would be for some of the womens times where there are some fairly soft times through the age groups. If there has now been a big surge in a particular age group/ gender deciding to apply for London then that is great. I'd be surprised if there has been a major change in the number of under 40 blokes getting sub 3:05 times without VMLM people noticing though.

Although if more furriners have figured out how to apply that could cause a big surge in numbers.

Just did a quick search of results. These are the numbers of men in the 18-39 age category who have gone under 3:05 in the London marathon for the last 4 years.

859 in 2012
928 in 2013
945 in 2014
1188 in 2015

While it's nowhere near the 100% increase that 3,000 to 6,000 would represent it is 25% which is fairly substantial. If that was replicated around Britain and given the guaranteed entry that it represents then I can see the 18-39 male category as delivering a substantial part of the increase.

robinph

That is a much bigger increase than I was expecting and in a very short space of time to go from 859-1188. A tiny bit of that is probably down to their changing the GFA time a couple of years ago making the 3:06 people try a bit harder to claim their spots for the following year.

Whilst someone will no doubt say that sub 3 is nothing to shout about, that has to be great for marathon running that the numbers are moving up that significantly. Will have to feed through to more championship qualifying times and then eventually a few more people capable of super speedy times. It's all good for marathon running, just not great for people wanting a place in London marathon 2017.

robinph

Several people have reported getting their confirmation emails through today. Check your email and spam folders people.

Bulmers74

I is in
Got the mail this morning

WithCheesePlease

And the wait and suspense is over - I'm in. Took 14 working days, I applied on the 30th. Phew.

ooter

Congrats WCP, welcome to the club.

Abhainn

Got my confirmation yesterday morning. Applied 2nd July
So I'm back for the 5th instalment.

Jmcmen

I'm in, I dunno If I am happy or not. Just need to get back on the training horse I suppose

RubyK

For anyone looking to book their flights early, flights are now on-sale for Cork/Dublin to London City Airport, with CityJet.

Fri - Mon €115 p.p. ex Cork.

Fri - Mon €106 p.p ex Dublin.

ooter

Anyone any experience of flying back out of one of the London airports the evening of the Marathon, is it doable or is public transport mental all that day/night?
Or would I be better relaxing and staying the extra night?

robinph

I wouldn't expect there to be much of an issue with using the public transport to get to airports in London after the marathon. The increase in numbers in the city that day is really insignificant in comparison to the daily commuting traffic, and apart from the morning where everyone is trying to get to Greenwich for the start, any additional volume of people will all be going in random different directions.

You biggest problem is going to be negotiating stairs at the train stations and to get onto a plane if they don't have an airbridge.

Metar

Hi, did London this year and flew home on the sun evening of the race. It was very straight forward. Flew out of London City Airport on a fight around 8:30. Had loads of time after marathon for pint and a bit to eat - then got public transport out to airport. Was never rushed. There were plenty of people flying home that night. Public transport was not an issue and free for runners on the day of marathon.

ooter

TY metar, very helpful..

tang1

Hopefully good news for some of us from Wednesday on, best of luck to all in the ballot.

RedRunner

tang1 wrote: »

Hopefully good news for some of us from Wednesday on, best of luck to all in the ballot.

If I get lucky , probably will defer to 2017, assuming I can do that, as unlikely I would be ready for it at the rate I'm going with recovery.

RunRoryRun

tang1 wrote: »

Hopefully good news for some of us from Wednesday on, best of luck to all in the ballot.

Is it October 1st we find out? Entered the overseas ballot, so not expecting anything - do overseas get the booklet in the post too or just an email either way?

tang1

RunRoryRun wrote: »

Is it October 1st we find out? Entered the overseas ballot, so not expecting anything - do overseas get the booklet in the post too or just an email either way?

From 30th of Sept on per there Facebook page. We get either a magazine or e-zine stating the good or bad news.

AAD

Just saw this on their facebook page.

Q. How many people entered the ballot this year and what was the chance of gaining a place?

A. A record total of 247,069 people entered the ballot for the 2016 Virgin Money London Marathon. We expect approximately 38,000 runners on the start line on Sunday 24 April. We accept more than 50,000 runners as we can predict, after 35 years, almost exactly what proportion of entrants will drop out due to illness, injury or other reasons before Race Day

That's a 1 in five chance of gaining a pace though the ballot. Did anybody receive any news today??

rainbow kirby

It's a lot worse than that. Take out the guaranteed entry routes (charity, GFA, championship) and you're left with probably around a third to a half of that number for ballot runners.

robinph

No deliveries of magazines for me yet. I expect to be getting a spiderman and a bee through the letterbox, if we get two bees then it's going to require some baby sitting to be arranged as well.

WithCheesePlease

Good breakdown of how the different places are distributed here. He puts the chances at about 1 in 15.

ISOP

15 years ago you had a good chance of getting in on the ballot, now the charities have completely hijacked the whole thing, it is a farce

robinph

ISOP wrote: »

15 years ago you had a good chance of getting in on the ballot, now the charities have completely hijacked the whole thing, it is a farce

If the charities were not there then you still would not have a good chance of getting a place. There would still be 250,000 people applying for 30,000 places rather than 15,000. That would not be much of an improvement to your chances in the ballot and there would still be well over 200,000 people not getting a place.


Edit: Just decided to have a look and see what has changed in the last 15 years. The size of the field has grown by 8000, all of those 8000 people are female and the average finishing time is actually quicker than it was in 2001.

2001
2015

Obviously that doesn't actually prove anything as VMLM will be fiddling those stats based on who they give places to so doesn't prove anything, interesting though.

chickey2

Got a no today :-(
I did get a top with my magazine though so it's not all bad.