London Landmarks Half Marathon – 2024

After trying in the past, this year I was lucky in the ballot and got a place in the 2024 London Landmarks Half Marathon. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried, not that many. I remember last year I wanted to try, but I had to pass because I had a place in a slightly longer run in London just a few days later.

London Landmarks is the second major London Half Marathon I have the fortune to run, after The Big Half in autumn 2023. That was a great race and, in a way, its route gave me stronger feelings of similarity to the 2023 TCS London Marathon, which I had run 6 months earlier. The London Marathon remains the most unique running experience in my life, and I had run Berlin before. It is probably because of the unique route and the incredible crowd support and atmosphere that follows from the get go to the very end. The Big Half hits two landmarks that are part of the London Marathon legend: Tower Bridge and the Cutty Sark. On the other end, support is not as awesome and the rest of the route is fairly uninspiring.

Conversely, the London Landmarks HM follows a great route, even if not perfect. It is all central and that helps with supporters: the vibe is nearly as pervasive as it is in the Marathon and it is virtually non stop. The route is a mix of the final stretches of the Marathon and most of the central stretches of another great race, the ASICS London 10K.

It’s not a perfect race, the route gets pretty silly around the City with all the snaking around. And some obvious landmarks like Oxford Circus, China Town, Tower Bridge are not touched. But you cannot have everything: it is a fantastic race with a unique atmosphere. Any runner would love it, if you are into mass events. I mean, we are talking about 25,000 runners enjoying 21.1KM around the very centre of such a wonderful city.

As Londoners, I don’t think we fully appreciate how lucky we are to have so many road-closed events in the centre of our home town. It is truly amazing, I doubt many other global capitals can enjoy something similar. In Autumn I will have a chance to join the Royal Parks HM as well. At that point, I will try to compare and contrast the wonderful races that we host in London.

The buzz you get from a mass event is difficult to describe if you have not tried it before. A city comes to a halt, to host 25,000 other runners like you. Most of them average runners, amateurs that are there to enjoy and, often, support a worthy cause. You get there often more than an hour before, go through pre-determined approach paths, soak in the atmosphere. As nerves grow, entertainment starts: it is truly magic. And it is a magic shared with everyone around you, even if they are all strangers. Try it, it is worth it!

TLDR: the Good and the Bad of the London Landmarks HM 2024

Long story short: I definitely recommend it! Yes, some things could also be improved, but I definitely think the positive wildly outweighted the negatives for the London Landmarks Half Marathon 2024

Training ahead of the London Landmarks HM 2024

I had hoped I could slot a decent training cycle between December 2023 and April 2024, after the second half of 2023 had been showing a consistent decline in my fitness. Hopes are not always fulfilled, though. And this time, the result was the complete opposite.

In April 2023 I ran the London Marathon and I thought i had gone through that event in bad shape. I had the same thought after completing the Big Half in Autumn, but there is no limit to how much worse things can get if you lose consistency in training.

I did not expect to get anywhere close to my PB which is, roughly, 1:55 for a HM. I hoped to get to the end, and I did. I hoped to enjoy the experience, which I did. I hoped to enjoy the running… which I kind of did, until I started cramping. But forgetting my gels with the bag drop was not a smart move. Will I get back to a place where I can chase PBs? I hope so, and I know what I need to do to get there. Now I only need to find that consistency back.

Back to the race then.

Travel and Start Area

It is a very big event taking place in Central London so two things should be clear: it is messy, involving a lot of logistics. And you should forget about driving to the start: use the excellent public transport we have in London. Uber and taxis could be ok to get you relatively close to the start area, but they are really not needed. And they will probably have to leave you quite far anyway.

The start line is Pall Mall, within sight of Trafalgar Square. It doesn’t get more central than that.

There is a Wave system to regulate flow and stagger starting times. In 2024, there were 8 waves, organised in 2 blocks. Waves 1-4 started first and waves 5-8 started after a short break. The two groups of waves were allocated slightly different arrival areas and bag drop locations. In truth, while organisers suggested different stations and approach routes, if you stuck to you staggered arrival times there was no need to approach the start area from different locations, The different approaches are only in place to allow the later waves to queue outside of the start area if they arrive too early.

The best tube station to arrive at is probably Green Park, which is served by the Victoria and Jubilee lines. Alternatively, you can also arrive at Piccadilly Circus (similar distance) or Charing Cross (messier approach, since you will need to get across the running route. I suspect there must be a way to do it, but I wouldn’t want to try finding it when in a rush.

Each group of 4 waves is allocated 8 buses numbered buses. When it is time, you should get on any of the buses in your area, leave your bag inside it and leave. At the end, you will need to find the same bus, find your bag and show the attendant your BIB and the bag strip for them to confirm it is the same. In theory at least, I doubt they were checking that all numbers were the same. Not the safest way to do it, so I would recommend not to leave things that are worth too much, but I also doubt the kind of people joining an event like this would go hunting for clean socks to steal. More concerned about accidental swaps.

After you have left the buses, keep walking for less than 100 metres, and the humongous toilet area starts. This beautiful part of London is turned into an endless row of port-a-loos with people queuing in front of them for most of the morning. Kind of funny.

Queues are actually pretty short for an event of this kind. Within 10 minutes max, you should be done and ready to get on your way. The only criticisms I would have here is that there were no more toilets closer to the actual start, which is probably 5-7 minutes walk away. Not a big deal, but it would have been nice and avoided a trip back for that inevitable second ‘safety’ toilet trip.

Once you are done, it is time for a nice and short walk East. Cut through King Street and St. James Square and get towards the end of Pall Mall. The actual start area will be very close to the end of Pall Mall towards Trafalgar Square, after Waterloo Place.

Each wave has a separate holding pen in the middle of the road and this only open about 30 minutes before the expected start time. Hence, if you are early, you will need to wait and loiter around on the pavement or nearby squares. Not many cafes here unless you go back up to Piccadilly. Once it’s time, you will be let into your holding pens: you can go to a higher wave, you cannot go to a lower wave, since those are allocated by expected finish time. Attendants will check, don’t try.

A short guided ‘warm-up’ will be the last act before the main event, then it is time to go!

This is why we came here after all, let’s enjoy!

London Landmarks Half Marathon 2024: the Course

The course mostly covers the City of Westminster and the City of London. While the long stretch from the Tower of London and then along the Embankment will wake memories of the London Marathon route up for people who run it, that’s the only real overlap. As said, there are more overlaps with the ASICS London 10K, but even there, it is not 1 to 1. I don’t think there is any other large race in London that offers runners the opportunity to run past some of the City landmarks that we cover here. St. Paul’s is a feature in many races, but the Bank of England and the Guildhall aren’t. I think the route passed by the Bank way too many times, but the approach to the Guildhall and the short segment through its courtyard were special.

It is an interesting route and I cannot even imagine how painful designing it must have been. You manage to tick off a lot of tourist destinations in 21.1Km! The fact it is so central and it keeps lopping around similar areas must also be one of the reasons why crowd support is so great. It is non stop, similar to the Marathon. Dead zones are very very few. And organisers filled the route with activation points with performers and historical representation which were all great. I have to say starting in Wave 5 (ie the fastest wave in the slow group), a few of the performers seemed to have run out of steam, which was a bit of a shame. But they are human after all… maybe being ‘bang in the middle’ was the problem: I had caught their break.

A couple of criticisms to the route though. The City of London section, especially around Bank does get a bit silly. Way too many twists and turns to keep going around the same area… after you passed by the Bank 4 or 5 times it starts getting slightly boring. Also, getting all the way to the Tower of London but not even passing in front of Tower Bridge is such a shame. The bridge is by far the most iconic moment of the London Marathon and the Big Half. It would have elevated runners mood when you are approaching 10 miles and start getting tired.

I wonder if we are missing a trick here and the possibility to combine some of the bits missed from the London 10K (Regents Street, China Town) and Tower Bridge into a less twist-and-turny route that really offers a unique experience. I guess it probably would require a road closure area that gets too wide for nearly a whole day?

A Relive route plot can be found on my YouTube channel as a Short. The full video highlights are also available on the channel and embedded below.

Obviously, given how central it is and the fact it is all on closed roads, the surface is excellent. It is paved all through, mostly on wide fully clear road sections. In certain areas for some reasons they had allowed supporters to close in on the runners, creating a 2/3m wide path within the road. Not sure why, but it created an even stronger feeling of support, which was cool. A bit of congestion in those areas, but not that much.

What is extremely unusual for this race is the huge amounts of twist and turns and 360-degrees turnaround points. Look at the City of London section above (the area between St. Pauls and the Bank of England). You keep going around for more than 10K I think and that whole area is known as the Square Mile. Funny and, clearly, not optimal for PBs. Not that I had any chance to run a PB this time.

Conditions on the day were great for running. It must have been the first real day of spring in London. Sunny, with around 15/16 degrees and a light breeze (mostly). Forecasts were for strong gust winds, but I could only feel annoying winds a couple of times in specific spots. In general, it was never a problem. Warm enough, but never so hot that it would get uncomfortable. The stereotypical great running conditions we often enjoy in the UK.

Entertainment was great, at least in theory. There were a lot of bands, choirs and historical activations along the route. I am sure the first few waves and, maybe the last ones, enjoyed a great show together with the awesome support from the general public. Running straight in the middle of the field, I have to say it was a bit of a hit and miss for me. I pass by a lot of the bands and choirs while they seemed to be on a break. Oh well, a matter of luck I guess. I was particularly sad I did not get to hear a couple of West End songs.

I would usually try to write nearly a turn-by-turn description of the route at this point. This route is kind of bonkers, so I will not be able to do that or it might take me a week. But I will do my best to capture some of the experience and my memory of it, since I am now writing this nearly a week after running it.

The start line is at the end of Pall Mall and they had a pretty smart way to think crowds out. Once things got going, runners had to get through two fixed ‘turnstiles’ made with steel barriers, meaning you would mostly have two runners at a time going through. A bit weird, but not wasting too much time and fairly effective. Then it is time to go, with the simple but interesting ‘bowler hat send off’ as first activation. In a matter of seconds, it is time to enter Trafalgar Square, which is always one of the greatest spots to run through in large london mass races. Afterwards, it is straight into the Strand, for a weird detour. This is not section with anything special to see: they just make you ran past Charing Cross station and then turn around on yourself and go back towards Trafalgar Square. It works well because there are great crowds in the area, but I am sure that distance could have been used elsewhere too, maybe to reach Tower Bridge and turn around there?

You then get back to Trafalgar Square and turn left into Northumberland Avenue. This is the first downward slope. Not steep, but the great crowds and early race nerves all contribute to building speed up. You see the river down there, you want to reach it! Don’t push too much, still more than 20K to go! Once you reach the river, you turn left on Embankment and the crowds keep roaring on both sides. The road is split in half, with early waves runners coming back on the other side, running their last mile. After a few metres, you pass under the first bridge on the Thames and under the bridge there is a very effective drums band. It definitely works its magic this early in the race, it is great. And when you will be coming back, it kind of keeps you alive.

A segment on the Thames now, with plenty of charity cheer points, before you reach Somerset House and turn left, tackling a short uphill many races seem to like adding to their routes. It is noticeable, but not long… if you only go up the short bit above Temple station. LLHM had a sadistic idea here and they decided we should turn left again half through it and keep going up. Because why not, right? 🙂 So now we have to climb back up towards the Strand, pass it and turn around on a small semicircle along Aldwich. Then it is time to come back down towards Temple Place and join the Embankment again. So yeah, just a sadistic detour, not many other reasons to do it this way.

Once on the Embankment, time to keep going East, go under the bridge in Blackfriars and emerge in the City proper. Some more mild climbing here when we need to turn left into Puddle Dock and then right into Queen Victoria Street.

Not long before reaching Mansion House station, you stop your slog Eastward and turn left, into a small, unremarkable little street. It is another mild climb, not much support, but somehow you see crows increasing dramatically at the top. Why this change, noise is noticeable, a choir is singing as well. In this little anonymous spot?

After you have gone past St. Paul’s a second time, this time you turn left and go North along its East side, with the One New Change shopping centre on your right. I haven’t been here for a while and I remembered it looking nice. I don’t think it has aged very well, it is due a cleaning up. Then once you have reached the end of the Cathedral area, turn left again and run alongside its North side on Cheapside. This is the start of the section I enjoyed the least. It is meant to reach a worthy Landmark, and around it will be great, but the way there and back is nothing special.

You keep going West on Cheapside, until you suddenly turn left and enjoy a small downhill. Nice views of the destination landmark from here, visible between new(ish) glass skyscrapers. The Landmark is the Royal Court of Justice and you will soon reach it and enjoy running along its South and East sides before starting your way back towards the City. Near the Royal Court of Justice, the route nearly touches the weird detour you had done before around Temple.

Then back going East, running again along Cheapside and, again, reaching St. Paul’s. This time you go past it and are honoured by the sound of Bow Bells before it is time to turn left.

It is now time to detour around the Guildhall from outside, reach Aldermanbury Garden and then run past the side of the Guildhall on the Eastern side.

We are soon back on Cheapside and starts going East towards Bank station. Soon it is time to reach the side of the actual Bank of England in an area where crowds again get incredibly supportive and concentrated. Why are there so many people here? Because this is a bit where the route becomes really weird. It will turn around on itself many times and you will and up running by one side or another of the Bank of England 5 or 6 times. Mixed feelings about this. The area is great, some of the bits around the historical parts of the City are actually great. But for me it started getting confusing and we are probably approaching 8/9 miles around here, so I was also starting to be tired.

If you don’t get lost in the Bank of England maze (you won’t), at a certain point the organisers decide you have had enough and release you. It will be time to start running in an Eastward direction again, towards Tower HIll. When you finally approach the Tower, you are greeted again with a very high density crowd area and great views on the Tower of London. Unfortunately, the 360 degrees turnaround point here is a few 100m before Tower Bridge, so you don’t get to see it. That’s exclusive for The Big Half, apparently. A reason to run the both!

Once you turn around, then it’s time to start a long straight back towards the river and, eventually Westminster Palace. This is where the strongest memories from the London Marathon will hit you, if you have run it before. Because these are the last miles of the London Marathon as well. The first part in Upper Thames Street is still not alongside the river, but it is enjoyable because of the architecture and the ‘historical signposts’ organisers have left along the route. Like the area where the Great Fire of London started.

But soon you will reach Blackfriars and this time go under the tunnel. And once you exit it you are rewarded with the riverside stretch of the Embankment. This time it is the last stretch home, not the initial way out. Support is great here as it was before and the drummers will tump some new life into your legs. Possibly.

The approach to the Houses of Parliaments are great, then you turn left to run back and forth on Westminster Bridge. A last honour section, with the London Eye and Big Ben both proudly looking over you. And congratulating you, because you are nearly there!

But the route planners could not help themselves and they needed to give us another out and back! So after the short out and back on Westminster Bridge, it is time to turn right again on Victoria Embankment and trace our steps back all the way to Northumberland Avenue. Third and last time you run along this corner, this time you turn left and then soon left again to hit Whitehall Place and then left onto Whitehall, for the final 200m. The finish line is there waiting for you, just by the seat of (bad) Government. Enjoy and be proud of yourself, you have completed the London Landmarks Half Marathon!

The finish area is again activated by plenty of actors in costume, some of them handing you over the medals. Then volunteers will hand you the (disappointing) goody bag with a puny can of water and a little snack.

Want to get your bag back… follow the route out from Horse Guard Parade and reach the area where you started. Not far, on fresh legs.

Time to gloat and share the bling.

The medal is actually gorgeous, as it always is the case with this race.

Well done!

Facilities

Mass participation running events can be huge and difficult to manage, taking over large chunks of cities and often mixing in runners, supporters and annoyed locals. Logistics must be pretty daunting, but small inefficiencies can make or break the experience for amateur runners who spent months training ahead of the event.

Lets go over my thoughts about the main items that can affect the experience then:

• Transport to start line: easy given location
• Start area(s): not overcrowded and well organised
• Kit drop: quick and efficient
• Start area toilets: plenty
• Waves system: well organised
• Start section: it does not feel overly congested. Impressive, for nearly 25K participants
• Course: nice and scenic, but a bit too convoluted around Bank
• Toilets: enough on the course, but always busy
• Water stations: enough around the course
• Gels: None and you would expect some from such an event
• Finish line: beautiful location, efficient setting, but short, offering a very rushed experience
• Bling: beautiful finisher medal in 2024
• Finisher T-shirt: cool
• Finisher refreshments: frankly pathetic

London Landmarks 2024 – Video Highlights

I have prepared video highlights that I hope you will also enjoy. I do this for most of my races and parkrun events I attend, it’s a fun hobby for me. If you enjoy it, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. I have no ambitions to monetise it, but it is always nice to see someone appreciates it..

If you enjoyed this report or the highlights, you can find a list of my parkrun reports here and other race reports here.

Conclusions

This is a great race, well worth the pain and well worth the cost. Mass races in Central London are unique, our city always comes together to support runners and this route is special. Kind of bonkers, but special.

I am pretty sure I will try running it again. It was that good

Did you run as well? Let me know your thoughts!

Do you want to run it, but think you cannot? Let’s chat, anyone can do it, really!