British Steel

Pris Chew participates in the 2019 London Marathon and narrates her experience.

- Pris Chew

Over the past few years, I had heard a lot about the London Marathon, and it became a race that I was really enthusiastic about running at. Like all World Marathon Majors, it was not easy to gain entry to, but this year I caught a lucky break.

Snagging a ballot place

After several years of trying, I managed to snag a spot via the ballot for the 2019 London Marathon. I received a congratulatory email and from there I went into full preparation mode, as I was finally going to run in England!

The 2019 edition of the London Marathon took place on Sunday, 28th April. I booked my flight from Singapore to arrive in London on the night of 24th April, which would give me a few days to acclimatise to the British weather and get in a short run too, in order to finalise my gear for the race.

Time passed by in a whirl and race day soon arrived. The mass start was scheduled to flag off from 10:00AM onwards. In order to prevent overcrowding, the race start was separated into four waves.

Arriving at the start

I reached Greenwich Park, starting point of the race, at about 8:00AM, which actually turned out to be a bit too early, as my wave start zone didn’t officially open until almost three hours later.