London Marathon 2025

Julian’s comments on this years marathon;

This year I took part in the 2025 TCS London Marathon which marked the 45th Anniversary and I was lucky to get a Charity place with PHAB which inspires and supports disabled and non-disabled children, young people and adults, to make more of life together – breaking down community barriers, reducing social isolation, and creating opportunities for all involved to enjoy the same activities and challenges side by side.

The whole experience was incredible and this year was a recored breaking year as the London Marathon broke a Guinness World Record for the Largest Number of Finishers in a Marathon which was 56,640 people!!

Before the big day, I had a mixed bag of feelings of nervousness, excitement, doubt, adrenaline and confidence.

I arrived at Greenwich in good time and there were thousands of people who were getting ready for their start times. The first thing I wanted to do was to drop my bag to Lorry 32 and this would be then transported to the finishing line. After a couple of nervous toilet breaks, Wave 15 was called out and we had to get into our pen. This took a while, it took about 20 minutes to finally get to the starting line and I couldn’t wait to start as the heat was ramping up!

Then in no time, Blue Wave 15 were off and the journey began of 26.2 miles!

Throughout the whole Marathon, the crowds were absolutely amazing, complete strangers calling your name and giving support to everyone which was so motivating. It really showed how much compassion us runners have with each other because everyone was supporting each other. Listening to so many touching stories really hit home to the reasons why we do this.

Running around London was iconic to see so many landmarks including the Cutty Sark, The Shard, Tower Bridge, Canary Wharf, London Eye, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.

I had many moments throughout the Marathon where I was blown away and I’ll never forget them.

My aim was to finish the London Marathon in 5.00hrs and I achieved a time of 4:59:25 so really happy with my time! I didn’t hit the wall and I had my legs throughout, this was aided by controlling my pace, hydrating and fuelling correctly.

Compared to last year’s Marathon, I found it harder mainly because of how hot it was which certainly gave me an extra challenge!
I would like to thank everyone who has supported and sponsored me throughout, it has really meant a lot.

– Julian Ball