The free TCS Mini London Marathon returns to central London on Saturday 25 April, the day before Sunday's senior race, and London Marathon Events confirmed on Wednesday morning that a record 15,000 children from 542 schools have registered to run over the event's two distances. The Mini Marathon is open only to schools, starts at Horse Guards Parade and finishes on The Mall — taking children over exactly the same final 2.6 kilometres of the marathon course that the elite athletes will race 24 hours later — and has quietly become one of the largest organised youth sport events in Europe. The 2026 edition is the biggest since the event was relaunched in its current format in 2022 and the first to include four dedicated wheelchair waves.
The format is simple but deliberately inclusive. Children in Reception through Year 7 run a one-mile course that loops around St James's Park, starting at Horse Guards Parade and passing Buckingham Palace before finishing on The Mall. Older children in Years 4 through 12 — note the overlap — can opt for the longer 2.6-kilometre route, which adds an out-and-back stretch along Constitution Hill to bring the distance up to one tenth of a marathon. Every finisher receives the same weighty bespoke "Mini Marathon" medal that has become a schoolyard status symbol, along with a finisher's T-shirt designed by pupils from Sarah Bonnell School in Newham. Title partner TCS pays participating schools £10 per child who crosses the finish line, money that typically goes back into the schools' PE and sports departments.
The event has expanded rapidly since London Marathon Events took the decision in 2021 to make it free and schools-only, removing the legacy individual-entry model that had limited participation to a few hundred borough-selected runners each year. The 2022 edition saw 9,400 finishers, 2023 brought 11,200, 2024 topped 13,000, and the 2025 event recorded 14,100 finishers across both distances. This year's expected 15,000 takes the event past the symbolic one-tenth-of-the-senior-field mark and, organisers say, brings the Mini Marathon close to the infrastructure limits of the St James's Park course. Further growth, London Marathon Events CEO Hugh Brasher said on Tuesday, will probably require a second school-running event later in the year rather than further expansion at ExCeL weekend itself.
Saturday's programme runs in waves from 09:00 to 13:00, with the first one-mile wave setting off at 09:00 and the wheelchair waves following at 09:30. The 2.6-kilometre runners head off in rolling starts from 10:00, with the elite schools' wave — a new, merit-based element for 2026 that selects the top 30 Year 12 boys and girls from across the UK — scheduled for 12:00. Running Lookout understands that the morning's fastest time is likely to be contested between the schools of Chiltern Edge and Notre Dame Sheffield, two programmes that have each produced several England Schools cross-country medallists in the last 18 months. Around the finish, the Mini Marathon village on Horse Guards hosts live music, a sports skills zone sponsored by Sport England, and a partnership activation from title sponsor TCS that gives every finisher a shoe voucher for its Running Show partner retailer Runners Need.
Beyond the single day on The Mall, the event has quietly become the centrepiece of the Mini London Marathon in Schools programme, a year-round initiative that now reaches 2,200 UK primary and secondary schools. Schools receive a free "Schools Pack" with lesson plans, mileage-tracking wall charts, and PE lead training, and are invited to run their own mile within the school grounds in the two weeks before race day — last year more than 600,000 UK pupils completed that virtual mile, a number London Marathon Events says is bigger than the total combined annual participation of all UK youth athletics clubs. Brasher, launching this year's numbers at ExCeL on Wednesday, said the in-schools programme "has become the best single thing London Marathon Events does" and described Saturday's on-street event as "the celebration that the school-yard work earns." Forecasts point to dry, cool conditions for race morning — ideal, one Year 6 runner from Bethnal Green told Running Lookout on Tuesday, "for doing a PB on The Mall."