TCS London Marathon: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

Three Start Lines around Blackheath and Greenwich Park send you off from a little over 40 metres above sea level. The three fields only merge just before Mile Three in Woolwich – and by then the course has already spent its one real piece of elevation: after a flat crest around kilometre two the road drops some 45 metres between kilometres three and six. From there to the finish it never leaves a band of two to fourteen metres.

The route runs west through Charlton, Greenwich and Deptford and swings around the Cutty Sark at kilometre 10.6. Through Rotherhithe and along Jamaica Road you reach Tower Bridge at kilometre 20 – the day's only genuinely uncomfortable ramp sits just before it, halfway just after. North of the Thames the course follows The Highway to Westferry and loops through Mudchute, Docklands and Canary Wharf before rejoining The Highway around Mile 21. The final five miles take in Tower Hill, Victoria Embankment, Parliament Square and Birdcage Walk, then the turn at Buckingham Palace and The Mall.

London has never had a Saturday like this. For the one-off Double the organiser opened Saturday charity places to every UK charity, including many that had never held an entry before. This race is the biggest annual one-day fundraising event in the world – more than 87.5 million pounds in 2026, a world record – and the field around you is running for causes rather than clocks. The Running Show at ExCeL stays open on Saturday while day one is being run.

Pacing Strategy

The opening six kilometres hand you 45 metres of descent and are also the most crowded of the day. Both push the same way: too fast. Run the crest to kilometre two calmly, take a straight line on the wide roads instead of weaving, and refuse to be carried away on the drop at Mile Three. From kilometre six the course is flat – after that only you hold your pace, because no change of terrain will do any of the work.

The race is decided between Miles 15 and 20 in the Docklands. Among the towers and in the Westferry Underpass your GPS is useless, the narrow streets funnel the wind, and there are twists and turns to negotiate. Work off the mile markers rather than the watch, or you will run surges that come back to you on The Highway from Mile 21. The short ramp before Tower Bridge at kilometre 20 costs more than its gradient suggests, because the wall of noise there tempts you into a push.

The Saturday-specific trap is the timetable. The Finish Line on The Mall closes at 17:30, so a start around 09:00 leaves 7 hours 45. Starting from the back of the field, minutes disappear in the waves before you have run a step, and they never come back. Work backwards from the closing time rather than forwards from your goal time, and build the drinks stations from Mile 3 into that plan instead of skipping them.

Training plan for TCS London Marathon: 12-week build

For an age-group runner the effort lasts anywhere from a little over three hours to seven; the official pacers cover 3:00 to 7:30, and Saturday stops at 7:45. The demand is purely aerobic and unusually uniform: 74 per cent of the course is flat, there is not one climb worth the name, and therefore no section where different muscle groups take over.

That is exactly what makes the second half the decisive phase. From kilometre six no recovery arrives from the terrain; the pace has to come from your trunk and your head. The early kilometres, meanwhile, demand something most runners never train: 45 metres of descent inside three kilometres, taken at race pace on fresh legs, leaves eccentric damage you will feel from Mile 20. Run some long runs over rolling ground and deliberately hold the downhill sections in check.

Conditions: late April in London can mean anything from cool to unexpectedly warm, and with a 09:00 Saturday start most of the field is out over the middle of the day. Keep a few sessions in the heat and practise drinking on the move – water comes every three miles from Mile 3 and every two from Mile 12, with sports drink at Miles 7, 15, 21 and 23 and gels at 13 and 19. If you bring your own fuelling plan, rehearse it against exactly that grid.

The training emphasis is therefore sustained speed on the flat: weekly threshold work and goal-pace blocks of five to ten kilometres placed in the back half of long runs. Because both watch and signal fail you in Canary Wharf, part of that work belongs run by feel. And if the goal is simply to finish inside 7:45, what counts is not pace but time on your feet: at least one long run that honestly rehearses your planned race duration, run-walk strategy included.