Race Date: Sunday 6th April 2025

Natalie Thomas’ perspective:

Joel and I had a brilliant day at the London Landmarks Half Marathon. With our running gear and sunglasses on, we headed down to the start line at Downing Street. The atmosphere was buzzing – perfect conditions and a fantastic route incoming. My first ever half marathon was about to begin!

Setting off towards Westminster Bridge, it was a surprise to see the roads lined with so many people cheering us runners on. I lost count of the number of people shouting ‘keep going, Natalie!’ as they saw my name on my race number.  

With a blue sky backdrop, we made our way along the Thames to the Tower of London then weaved in and out of the maze of streets around St Paul’s and Bank. Every time I passed oncoming runners inside the maze, I wondered if I’d already run that bit or whether it was still to come! 

Every corner you turned there was a band, a choir or dancers bringing positive energy. Entertainment highlights included a London musicals choir singing the high energy bit from Wicked’s ‘Defying Gravity’ just as I was running past. 

Once the miles of street weaving were done, we headed back down to the Thames, along the river and then to the finish at Trafalgar Square. My back and left knee were getting sore by this point! 

I’ll need to sign up for another half marathon now. Unfortunately this one was 700m short due to a pre-race incident on the course which meant a swift re-route was needed. I wondered why my watch said 9.5 miles at the 10 mile marker! I also crossed the finish line with some confusion and would have carried on 700m to make up the distance if it hadn’t been for the sea of people!

We completed this run to fundraise for Pancreatic Cancer UK – a charity which has supported my family recently and supports many others too. My amazing mum was diagnosed with the disease in 2023 and we are so happy to say she is now cancer free!

Her and my dad joined us in London, wearing their PCUK T-shirts and cheering us on from the charity cheer station. I saw them at miles 2 and 12, which was brilliant. 

A huge thank you to the Striders for the 10k to half marathon training runs over the last couple of months. Those long Sunday group runs had me feeling confident and prepared on race day! 

Nick Burns’ perspective:

This race was all about charity and telling cancer to fuck right off. As you may be aware, my daughter was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer, a Ewings Sarcoma, in February 2023 and had to go through the most brutal of all chemo treatments as she watched all her mates go off to University. It was a really hard time for all of us, but especially Ella.

Fast forward 26 months and she’s fully recovered. I’ve been subtly dropping hints about running for god knows how long and during her recovery she started thinking about a charity fundraising event. Initially we considered London Marathon but with the training required for a full marathon in conjunction with her first year at University and her chemo recovery, we decided a half would be a good starting point.

We decided on LLHM as our goal and Ella, my wife, Jen, and I all signed up to run for The Bone Cancer Research Trust. We set our initial fundraising target at £1500 but were completely blown away by the generosity of all of our family and friends. The current fundraising total is £7806, which is absolutely phenomenal. I also said to Ella that due to the generosity of all you Striders out there, she had to become one so I signed her up!

The race itself was busy. It is a massive fundraising event and virtually everyone was wearing charity vest tops and t-shirts. Roughly 20 000 runners raised over £14 million for good causes so this event certainly has a place.

The weather was wonderfully. Jen decided to jeff her way round and I’d been dropping hints that Ella could go sub 2 hours. She wasn’t convinced but held it in the back of her mind.

We were off on the sunshine wave (wave 5) so there were thousands of people in front of us and it required a lot of weaving between people to try to get a good running line. The course itself is just nuts! To fit the landmarks into 13.1 miles required some interesting switchbacks and I’ve never really knew where I was.

The course itself was 700m short due to an incident which required partial course closure to keep us all safe. These things happen. The end was also a tease as we thought we were sprinting towards the finish as it was in sight, only to be treated to a final switchback which was a bit frustrating and deflating.

Overall, a great charity race and a good, well organised event. It’s good fun.

The male race was won by Stefan Otway in 1.08.38. The women’s race was won by Victoria Knight in 1.17.17. There were 19979 finishers.

Striders Results: