The first London Marathon took place back in 1981 and in an era before super shoes, high-tech on-course nutrition and fuelling, and so many other innovations, the race was won in a very decent time of two hours, 11 minutes and 48 seconds. In a great sporting feat that we would be unlikely to see today, Norway’s Inge Simonsen and American Dick Beardsley were joint winners, crossing the line hand in hand.
The UK’s Trevor Wright completed the men’s podium in a time of 2:12:53. Whilst in the women’s race, Kiwi Ngaire Drake separated Brit winner Joyce Smith (2:29:57) and her compatriot Gillian Horowitz, who was third. Back then 20,000 people or so applied to enter the inaugural race, with just over 7,000 making it to the line and 6,255 officially finishing.
If we fast forward to 2025, we can see that much has changed. In terms of the times for the elite men, the difference is not that dramatic. Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe won in a time of 2:02:27 but the joint winners from 1981 would have done enough for a very solid 16th place. The women in 2025 went significantly faster than their counterparts of yesteryear but in many ways that is a reflection of the fact that relatively few women took part in the inaugural London Marathon.
And that brings us to the biggest difference between 1981 and 2025, the sheer scale of the race. The 2025 London Marathon saw a staggering 840,318 enter the ballot to try and gain a place on the start line. That is around a 40-fold increase, whilst well in excess of 56,000 people made it to the start line. And of those many brave souls who threw their hats into the rings, a brilliant 56,640 finished the race, setting a new world record.
Most Finishers in Marathon History
In 2024 around 578,000 entered the ballot for London, so this year’s figure was a huge increase. The number of people that can take part is limited though, with logistics meaning that getting 60,000 to the start line is probably about as high as organisers can safely go. In 2024, the number of finishers went past 50,000 for the first time but this year, with a bigger starting number it was hoped that history could be made.
The New York City Marathon, like London one of the sport’s biggest races – both in numbers and prestige – saw a record 55,646 finishers. In 2025, London hoped to become officially the biggest marathon in the world and despite the hot weather, the thousands of brilliant runners in the mass event got across the line, literally and figuratively.
Guinness officially confirmed that the 2025 London Marathon had 56,640 finishers, with each of them playing their own important role in creating a new world record. That is the most people to have ever finished a marathon. With the race a gruelling 26.2188 miles, that means a cumulative 1,485,032 miles were covered. That’s enough to run to the moon and back three times!
Golden Era of Running
For a whole range of reasons, we are now in a golden age of running, with some calling this the third golden era of the sport. Prior to the 1970s running for the sake of it was not something that many people did, but the first real boom occurred at this time and saw millions of people begin to jog and run as a sport. In the UK, US, Europe and many other developed countries, tens of millions of people began to jog on a regular basis, recognising the many mental and physical benefits this could bring, as well as simply enjoying it.
A second running boom occurred from the mid-1990s onwards but over the past five years or so we have seen more and more people come to the sport. Incredible feats of endurance, such as Russ Cook’s run from the south of Africa to the north have really captured the imagination of the public. Marathon and even ultra-marathon running are no longer niche sports but are mainstream, with Jasmin Paris’s achievement in becoming the first woman to complete the notoriously tough Barkley Marathons event, garnering a lot of mainstream media coverage.
This boom is reflected in the huge number of people who finished the London Marathon this year and the even bigger number who wanted to be a part of it. What’s more, on the very same day as over 56,000 people sweated their way around central London, a very impressive 36,000 people were tackling the Manchester Marathon.
Running seems to be getting bigger and bigger and that can only be a good thing given the rise in obesity and related illnesses. Many of us live an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and running is a great way to combat that, with free events such as the hugely popular Park Run (which was first held in Bushy Park, London in October 2004) a great way for people to get started, no matter their level of fitness.
Wanna Be a Record Breaker?
Whilst running is definitely mainstream, there are those who like to do things a little differently and create their own weird and wonderful running records. If smashing the two-hour marathon is beyond you, there are some more attainable world records that you could consider targeting. That said, in this modern era of mass participation, the benchmarks for these are increasingly edging towards sub-elite levels of running, so you might need to get creative. Or get in some serious training!
At the 2025 London Marathon, there were 87 such records attempted, with almost half of those ending with success and a new time recorded by Guinness World Records. Some were not novelty records, with Angus Leckonby becoming the youngest man with an intellectual disability (he is autistic and has verbal dyspraxia) to complete a marathon. He also became the fastest, recording a very solid time of 3:36:38, at the age of 22. The biggest record was achieved by the winner of the women’s race, Tigst Assefa, who set a new mark in a women-only race (without male pacers).
However, some of the more light-hearted world records set include:
- Fastest marathon in a suit (male) – 2:39:57
- Fastest dressed as an elf (male) – 2:56:59
- Fastest dressed as a bird (female) – 3:26:37
- Fastest dressed as a monarch (female) – 3:33:42
- Fastest dressed as a crustacean (female) – 3:49:47