With the 46th TCS London Marathon now nine days away, organisers have formally opened event week against a backdrop of record-breaking ballot figures and a slate of satellite events designed to expand the race's footprint well beyond the finish line at the Mall. A world-record 1.1 million applications were received for the 2026 ballot — a 36 percent year-on-year increase — and London Marathon Events has publicly confirmed that plans for a 'one-off' 100,000-runner edition in the future are now at an advanced stage. That number would be the largest mass-participation marathon ever staged.
The event week begins with the inaugural TCS London Marathon & Friday Night Lights 5K, which starts at 7.45pm on Friday 24 April in Battersea Park. The race runs in waves, is lit along the course for the evening tempo, and is open to runners of all standards, with a portion of entries reserved for those using the weekend to raise funds for official marathon charities. Organisers have pitched it as a social, post-work warm-up to the bigger weekend — and as a hedge against the ballot pressure that has left hundreds of thousands of would-be marathoners looking for a London-branded race experience of any distance.
The TCS London Marathon Running Show runs at ExCeL from Wednesday 22 April to Saturday 25 April. Every entered runner collects their event pack at the show, and this year's exhibitor list leans more heavily than in previous editions on the crossover between running and strength, recovery and wearable tech categories. Paula Radcliffe and Chris Thompson will record a live episode of their podcast Paula's Run Club at Apple Brompton Road on Saturday 25 April, with Radcliffe's 2:15:25 course record — set in 2003 — back in the conversation given this year's women's field depth.
Apple, in its third year of a partnership with the event, has trailed the biggest expansion of its race-week programme to date. A new Apple Fitness+ plan, 4 Weeks of Strength for Runners, launches on 20 April as a collaboration with Strava and features trainers Kyle Ardill and Kim Ngo alongside ultramarathoners Hellah Sidibe and Kayla Jeter. A Race Day Inspiration evening on 23 April at Apple Brompton Road will host Joe Wicks, Sidibe and others for an in-store panel and a 5K shakeout. The collaboration is also where London's quietly-growing strength training emphasis — visible in marathon build plans for years — meets its biggest ever consumer platform.
The elite narrative is a familiar one. Defending champions Sebastian Sawe and Tigst Assefa both return, and the combined men's and women's line-ups include four of the five fastest women in history and three men with personal bests inside 2:03:00. Several big names confirmed for the field earlier in the year have since withdrawn — Sifan Hassan, Peres Jepchirchir and Emile Cairess among them — but the quality of those who remain means the course records of 2:01:25 and 2:15:25 will both be live on the morning of 26 April. Event week, for now, is about the setup; the result will arrive at the Mall next Sunday afternoon.