Phase 1 of the Flora London Marathon 2009 online entry ballot has now closed

[Sweder]

Ignore my rantings MLCMan. The last thing I wish to appear is ungrateful. I see things from the inside and trust me, there's a huge amount of puckering required to maintain one's place in the LM pecking order. LM provides charities with an excellent opportunity to boost revenues, end of. For that I and my colleagues at JDRF are undoubtably very grateful indeed.

I've had the luxury of running London on three consecutive occasions. It remains one of the most incredible experiences of my life, yet since moving on to other races I've come to realise it's a bit of a rat-run. That goes for Paris and probably a few other large City marathons besides. For anyone who's not been lucky enough to have taken part this sounds churlish, but I've come to value having time - and room - to really enjoy a race.

On another (related) matter I was most upset to observe a rather rotund couple walking through halfway last year sharing a fag. I'm sorry if this sounds 'elitist' but I have no time for it. I favour a cut-off (and here we're on a slippery slope as I know there are those who would argue this should be faster than I can run), and if pushed on it I'd say 6 hours. Therefore if you plan to walk the course you'll have to be honest and walk it at a fair old lick. If you want to walk to raise money for charity fair play to you; do a sponsored walk. Don't enter a running race, fight your way towards the front of the start and then clog up an already congested course.

Each to his own. If I've run my last London - or Paris - c'est la vie.

ps: If I appear unusually irrascible I apologise. It may have something to do with being held personally reponsible for the continuing sooty output of a certain Icelandic volcano by several blunt-headed, irate customers. Bears and sore heads, etc and so forth.