The Course
The route, as confirmed in October 2010, starts on The Mall about 350 metres from the Victoria Memorial and has four laps, finishing at the start point. It follows the Victoria Embankment towards the City of London where it takes a winding route and continues eastwards to Tower Hill. At this point there is a U-turn and the route heads westwards, again using the Embankment as far as the Palace of Westminster and thence back to The Mall. The last three laps are identical and are exactly 8 miles (12.875 km) each. The first lap, which only incorporates the south-western section of the route, is 2 miles and 385 yards (3.571 km) long.
A summary of the course and associated distance points is given below:
| Lap | Distance | Mile points | Kilometre points |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| km | mile | |||
| 1 | 3.571 | 2.2 | 1,2 | None |
| 2 | 16.445 | 10.2 | 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 | 5, 10, 15 |
| 3 | 29.320 | 18.2 | 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 | 20, half-way, 25 |
| 4 | 42.195 | 26.2 | 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 | 30, 35, 40 |
Read more about this topic: 2012 Olympic Marathon Course
Famous quotes related to the course:
“We noticed several other sandy tracts in our voyage; and the course of the Merrimack can be traced from the nearest mountain by its yellow sand-banks, though the river itself is for the most part invisible. Lawsuits, as we hear, have in some cases grown out of these causes. Railroads have been made through certain irritable districts, breaking their sod, and so have set the sand to blowing, till it has converted fertile farms into deserts, and the company has had to pay the damages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)