h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm impressed with the research. By the way are you a professional fundraiser?
London should not be your first marathon. It can take half an hour to cross the start line, and the whole adrenaline boost could cause you to start too fast and fail to finish, which after all the hard training would be a disaster. Pick a nice flat provincial one.
One final piece of advice: If you've never run a marathon before then get a map out and pick a place twenty six miles away and walk it. The average healthy person can do this in a day with a few pleasant breaks along the way. This will then give you an idea, and just an idea, of what you're letting yourself in for!

Thanks for your commments

I'm not a "professional" fundraiser but have raised quite a bit of money in my time. It's not as hard as it seems if you break down your target into small amounts and think £200 from a car boot sale, £200 from a raffle, £300 from your mates and that's £700 with not a huge amount of effort.

I sort of agree about London not being your first but you never get the level of support anywhere else in the world apart from New York maybe. It's a spectacular occasion and the feeling you get from doing it simply can't be beaten.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, you're right about the atmosphere of London. But now that running isn't as fashionable as it used to be we don't get the coverage. But I remember Ron Hill saying that if you could only run one marathon you should run it in Japan. The name always gets a laugh, but I would like to try Fukuoka. Then again I'd like to do all the 'big five'!