 It's just become harder than ever to get a London marathon good for age qualifying time. Let's talk about it. The spring marathons are fast approaching and many of you will be training for one of the big ones, Boston, London, Rotterdam, Brighton, Manchester, Paris. Paris in fact is the second largest marathon in the world in terms of participation numbers. Can you guess which is the largest? No, not New York. No, not London. It is in fact Mumbai in India which took place in January this year. What? I know. Let me know in the comments which spring marathon you are currently training for. Many of you I imagine will have a goal time in mind. Some of you will be wanting to get that elusive PR or PB. Other people will be targeting a Boston qualifier or indeed a London good for age time. The qualifying standards for the Boston marathon haven't changed in four years with 18 to 34 year old men needing to get under three hours and women needing to get under three hours 30 minutes. In my age category I would need to run a marathon in under three hours 25 minutes in order to qualify for Boston. But remember it doesn't matter if you get under the qualifying time that is no guarantee of entry. It all depends on how many other runners run the qualifying time and how much under the qualifying time you manage to get and only the fastest runners get in. That didn't use to be the case for the London marathon. Once upon a time if you got under the qualifying time even by a second you were in no questions asked. That all changed though a couple of years ago when London marathon events announced that they were going to be adopting a similar criteria to the Boston marathon whereby if you got under the qualifying time that didn't necessarily guarantee you a spot in the London marathon. But the actual qualifying times have essentially with the occasional tweak remained the same for a number of years. I wrote an article on the film my run website back in 2017 all about London marathon good for age qualifying times. And back then for a man of 18 to 34 the qualifying time was under three hours and for a woman it was three hours 45 minutes. In my age category it was three hours 15 minutes and that's essentially remained the same until very recently. By the way if you're finding this video useful or interesting then please do consider subscribing to the channel and also share it with your friends or anyone you know who might be interested. Many of you will have started training after Christmas and if your goal was or is a London marathon good for age time then you will have checked the qualifying standard and modified your training plan in order to work towards that goal. And these are very fine margins there's a huge difference between finishing in three hours and crossing the line in two hours 55. But if you've been training for a sub three marathon to qualify for London that's now exactly what you have to do. In fact everyone who's been training for their GFA goal time now has to find at least an extra five minutes from somewhere and for some people that's going to be impossible. Brighton and Paris marathons as I record this video are less than a week away. If you've been training for GFA for one of those marathons unless you have an absolutely stellar day and I really hope you do you are essentially screwed. It is very frustrating for a lot of runners who work their asses off all winter and maybe only have one chance in the year to get the time they need. But that is a saving grace of these changes you do have time. If you can possibly fit in another marathon training block the end of the qualifying period is September 30th so you could potentially run another marathon before that date. So why have London Marathon events done this? Well it's twofold as the sport of running becomes increasingly popular more and more runners are getting out there and there are so many runners now entering these events there simply aren't enough places available but also runners are getting faster. The dawn of the super shoe has redefined what runners are capable of and there is a wealth of information now on YouTube and the wider internet helping runners to train better and smarter to reduce their risk of injury to recover faster and to achieve results they never believed possible. By making qualification more difficult London Marathon events are hoping fewer people will be successful and therefore they'll get fewer applications although arguably with the current criteria it shouldn't matter what time they set because once all the fastest runners have qualified and all the spaces are filled up then that's it. I guess it means that fewer people will be left hanging on waiting to see if they're going to be successful fewer people will be disappointed when they don't get in and of course I guess it means less admin for London Marathon events. I ran two hours 55 in Paris last year check that video out right here and let me know in the comments what do you think of the new qualifying times for GFA and if you're not subscribed to the channel please do that now I'll be most grateful and I'll see you on the start line next time