This Sunday, runners of all ages and abilities will take part in the Vitality British 10k London Run, which has a military theme this year, says Matt Majendie
Both memorials will very much be in the eyeline of Sunday’s runners in the race, which also takes in Horse Guards Parade and Trafalgar Square before the finish on Whitehall.
There have been themes to the British 10k London in the past. In 2012, it was linked with the Olympic Games and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, while 2018 will mark another potentially bigger celebration to coincide with a century since the end of the First World War.
Help for Heroes — which has 2,400 runners in action for the charity this weekend — are hoping to smash the event’s fundraising record set by runners from Marie Curie Cancer in 2004 when £250,000 was raised for that particular charity.
But while the theme is abundantly military for this year’s event, it is not just about what happened a century ago, or the more recent conflicts involving military personnel.
“It’s about people enjoying themselves and hopefully the sun shining,” adds O’Reilly. “That, for us, would be a success. And then there is the obvious aim of raising as much money as we can for our official charity, Help for Heroes.”
London has become synonymous with hosting big sporting events, from the aforementioned Olympics two years ago to the Tour de France cycling race that weaved its way through the capital’s streets just a week ago.
This weekend, though, is all about two feet rather than two wheels as a variety of runners of all ages and abilities tackle a route that O’Reilly describes as “a tour of London”.
The British 10k London Run is still, to a certain degree, feeling the effects of London 2012 and the Games marathon that took in great swathes of the 10k London’s own route.
“What’s interesting is that we don’t do any marketing abroad, but last year we had about 700 runners from overseas and this year it’s about 600 already,” he says. “So that must be down to people seeing the iconic London streets in footage from the Games.”
With the focus so heavily on the military fanfare, which O’Reilly hopes will light up London, there is not quite the elite element of previous years in the event, the focus in many ways on the majority of runners who will line up just aiming to make it to the finish, regardless of the time.
Among those running will be The Only Way Is Essex’s Charlie King, while Jessica Ennis-Hill, well versed to winning in the capital after her Olympic success, has lent her support as an ambassador for Vitality, the event sponsor.
It has been a behemoth of a logistical operation to put the event together with the likes of Westminster Council and the Royal Parks, and such is the magnitude of it that plotting next year’s spectacle is already under way.
