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:
“The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seems as absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)