There is a version of this race I could have run — head down, chasing a time, treating London as a backdrop rather than a destination. I didn’t run that version. I ran this one instead: slower through the landmarks, camera out at the good bits, grateful at every mile that I was here at all.
After the kidneys, after the recovery, after the long slow patience of getting back to a body that worked the way I needed it to — this was the one. Not for a time. For the Dorset Renal Ward. For the staff at Dorchester County Hospital who looked after me when I was at my worst, who gave me the aftercare and the support that meant I eventually got to lace up again. You don’t forget people like that. You find a way to say thank you.
Westminster Bridge. Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, a Union flag in the wind. The point in the race where London stops being a backdrop.
The course
The London Landmarks Half Marathon starts on Pall Mall and takes you on a loop through the best of central London — the kind of route that makes you realise the city you thought you knew looks entirely different at pace, on closed roads, with a few thousand people running it alongside you.
Past Trafalgar Square and Nelson’s Column, the crowd thick and loud on both sides. Down toward the Embankment, the river grey and wide, the Shard rising on the south bank. Through the City — the Royal Courts of Justice looming Gothic on the Strand, St Paul’s dome appearing at the end of a narrow street like someone had placed it there deliberately for maximum effect. Past the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, and back along the north bank before swinging through Westminster, Big Ben overhead, the Houses of Parliament spread out behind you.
Approaching Trafalgar Square. Nelson’s Column in the distance. The crowd walls building.
Running the Strand past the Royal Courts of Justice. Victorian Gothic at pace.
St Paul’s at the end of the street. One of those moments where you stop thinking about the miles.
Running with a camera
I took photos. That is not something I did in 2018 — in 2018 I was watching the clock. In 2023 I was watching the city. Both are legitimate. They are different races.
The Inner Temple. The Shard above Tower Bridge. Runners threading through the medieval street plan of the City, modern glass towers visible above the rooflines. Bib 1240. Wave 1. Running because I could.
Past the Inner Temple — runners threading through 800 years of legal history.
Tower of London to the left, the Shard behind it. The Strava map would later show a PR segment on this stretch. I had no idea at the time.
Past St Paul’s — columns, Wren steeple, City skyline. Someone is always photographing this from a different angle.
The number that mattered
I finished in 1:42:43. The pace held, the legs held, the whole thing held. But the number I kept looking at afterwards wasn’t on Strava.
We set a target of £650. We raised £1,314. Two hundred and two percent. Forty-seven people donated — friends, colleagues, people who’d heard the story and wanted to be part of the thank you. We had aimed to say something modest and the people around us said something much louder.
The Dorset Renal Ward got the money. They already had my gratitude. This was just the part you could quantify.
The JustGiving page. £1,314. 202%. 47 supporters. The number that mattered.
Back at the hotel
Yellow finisher shirt. Medal. The particular stillness of a hotel room after thirteen miles on your feet.
I’d done it. Not quickly — not compared to what I was planning before the illness, not compared to the times I’d been chasing in 2019 before everything stopped. But I’d done it. The legs worked. The lungs worked. The whole machine worked, more or less, in the general direction of forward.
That’s enough. That’s more than enough.
Yellow shirt. Medal. Bib 1240. Hotel room. Done.
What came next
A few months later, Sarah and I booked Lisbon.
That’s a different story — the one this whole site is built around. But this race is where the shape of it began to form: the idea that movement could be deliberate, that the places you ran through deserved your attention, that a run could be for something beyond pace and personal bests.
I run because I can. And because some people I loved never got the chance to.
London, England — 13.25 miles — 1hr 42m 43s — 261ft — 7:45/mi