12 April 2026
Report by Gary Pearse
This was my second time running the London Landmarks Half Marathon, joining me this year were fellow Traccies Kirsty McMahon, Carly Lines and Jacqui Brazil. Last year I was recovering from an injury, and jeffed through the course in 3 hours 48 minutes, so this year I had a point to prove to myself.
The day started with us all meeting at Ramsgate station before 7 (on a Sunday!) and getting the train to London and the tube to the start area. With 20,000 people running the atmosphere was amazing and we made our way to the start, via the loos.
Kirsty started in wave 6, while the rest of us decided to join Carly in wave 7 to run together, and we headed to our pens. After the very enthusiastic warm up, we found our way through the start and we were off!
Jacqui was first out of the blocks and was a distant memory for Carly and myself as we settled in to our planned pace, over Westminster bridge and back, then off along the Embankment to Tower Hill. The crowds were amazing this year, and there was solid, noisy support along the whole course. We had our own cheerleaders, with fellow Traccies Andy Whitnell, Cathy Beddoes, Donna Dharmasema, Gillian Kennedy, Laura Thomas, Paul Cherry, Ela Wojciechowska, and Nikita, and they certainly made themselves heard!
Keeping a solid pace, we caught sight of Kirsty coming back along Embankment after the U turn at the Tower, and soon we were running with her. As we all had different plans, we left Kirsty to run her own race and made our way into the twisty section through the city. At mile 6 we were still sticking to our plan, but at mile 7 disaster struck as my IT band suddenly tightened and I had to slow up, leaving Carly to run alone. Determined to finish, I decided to go back to jeffing, running when I could, but resting my leg when needed.
After last year’s trick finish, where we could see the finish gantry, but were forced to loop down the strand for a couple of hundred metres, happily they moved the loop to elsewhere in the course and it was a straight finish, once again cheered to the end by our fantastic fan club. I eventually came home in 2:32:32, an amazing half marathon PB of 1 hour 23 minutes, and 1 hour 16 minutes quicker than last year’s slightly short race.
Finish Times:
Jacqui Brazil: 2:13:21
Carly Lines: 2:18:41
Gary Pearse: 2:32:32
Kirsty McMahon: 2:51:46
Also a big shout out to Sorcha Page, who was an official pacer at the event, for the 2:40 runners.
From Kirsty:
Our cheer squad was amazing, and actually, aside from ours, the crowd was fabulous all the way round. Seeing our group right at the finish was very special. The course was frustrating in places, with lots of tight turns, but the landmarks were great & running over Westminster bridge and along the Embankment at the start & finish was great. The charity cheer stations were fab & the DJs spaced out along the route were also a nice touch. My favourite moment was running through the courtyard (can’t remember the name), there was a choir singing and some random Romans!.
From Jacqui:
I thought the club support we got was fantastic! 8 people came to se our pain lol. I think we all did well considering the amount of people running and congestion, but the crowds were as amazing as before. I just love how we were rooting for each other … and I think Gary did a club record for the biggest new PB, which we are all so happy for you!x
From Carly:
I love this club the support we give each other i find very warming never met such a lovely group of people and taking their time and money to come up and support us is amazing made the day from start to finsh I think we all did amazing no run is easy and we all trained hard to get ourselves over the finsh line so we should all take some comfort from that we can do anything if we put our mind to it !!! Actually not everything as cant do a marathon xx
