[Russ]

Cheers guys - no guarantee I'll be in it though. The way it works is the registrations opened at midnight and they close once 125,000 people apply.

Then around October time all those applying get a magazine through the post telling them whether they are successful or not. Those who are get information, updates etc but the rest get a list of charities that are allocated places so you can apply to them to get sponsorship for the places and its usually the ones who raise the most get their places.

If you can't raise enough or for whatever reason don't wish to go down that route then officially-affiliated running clubs get a batch of entries, relating to how many registered members it has (my club has around 120 people so it's estimated we'll be offered about 10 places) and normally the fairest way for these clubs to do it is get the names of all the interested members, draw them out of the hat and award the places like that.

It costs £30 to apply for the London Marathon (paid today) and those that are unsuccessful get the option of having their fee donated to one of the VLM's nominated charities in exchange for a limited edition London Marathon shower-proof running jackets.

If I somehow manage to get a place I don't care what time I make it in - I reckon I'd be looking at around the 5 to 6 hour mark - the fact is I'll have done it, even if I come crawling in last...