London Marathon

Runners finishing the London marathon along the Mall.

Events calendar sponsored by AVIS

The London Marathon is one of the largest, annual sporting events that takes place in the UK. More than 80,000 charity fun runners take part, as well as hundreds of professional athletes and youth competitors.

Last year's London Marathon took place on a grey and drizzly Sunday in April, but what will the weather be like for this year's event?

Check the weather forecast for the London Marathon on Sunday and find out why some of our staff are taking part in this year's event.

London Marathon

London Marathon

22 April - Will you be cheering on the London marathon competitors? Check the London weather forecast.

You need Flash player 7+ and JavaScript enabled to view this video.

Transcript: London Marathon Outlook London Marathon Outlook (PDF, 115 kB) .

Weather for runners

Runners will be looking for a fine spring day to help them get around the 26.2 mile course in London. A mild, but not hot, day with a light breeze will help those charity runners who will still be completing the course past noon. Those conditions will also help the professional runners get around the course in world-record time - as we saw in 2002 when Khalid Khannouchi shaved a few seconds off his own world-record.

The event has seen some extremes of weather in the past 10 years. In 2004 it was particularly wet and windy, and Evans Rutto, the eventual winner of the professional men's race, slipped and fell in the poor conditions.

The course

The London Marathon course passes many of the historic sites of England's capital city. Some of the landmarks runners will take in are: 

  • Cutty Sark and the National Maritime Museum - runners will see these London landmarks around mile 6.
  • Tower Bridge - runners cross the bridge at mile 12.
  • Runners will pass the tallest building in the country, 1 Canada Wharf in the centre of Canary Wharf, at mile 19.
  • Runners will then pass Cleopatra's Needle, one of the pair that originally stood at Heliopolis in Egypt.
  • Nearing the finishing line, mile 25 sees the runners pass some of the most recognisable landmarks of the city with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.
  • With a mile to go, runners take their last few steps down The Mall before completing the race in front of Buckingham Palace.

You can check the weather forecast for other events through the Events Calendar.

If you're looking for content for your own website, take a look at our Weather Widget.


To view PDF documents you will need Adobe Reader.
Adobe Acrobat Reader