Tom B wrote:really love watching this too - the build up is amazing - great atmosphere - every year I say, maybe I'll enter for next year...maybe I will!
Chris Brasher founder of the London marathon, said the followng after running the New York marathon in 1979 and wondering if London could play host to a similar event...
""To believe this story you must believe that the human race can be one joyous family, working together, laughing together, achieving the impossible. I believe it because I saw it happen. Last Sunday in one of the most trouble-stricken cities of the world, 11,532 men, women and children from 40 countries of the world, assisted by one million black, white and yellow people, Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Muslims, Buddhists and Confucians, laughed, cheered and suffered during the greatest folk festival the world has seen. And at the end of it all the story was written in their faces - faces of contentment and happiness.
I'm sure that it was written in my face because I was one of those thousands who won the New York Marathon. For more than 10,000 of us who finished, it was a great personal victory over doubt and fear, body and mind. And for most of us, we won only because one million New Yorkers came out of their homes and holes to feed and water us, to make music and brotherly love and to be Good Samaritans to all who felt like dropping by the wayside.
I have heard the crowd shouting Sir Gordon Richards home in the Derby; the roar of the winning goal at Wembley; Olympic chants in four continents; but I have never heard such fervour as came from the crowd who cheer you as you approach the finish of the New York City Marathon.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, Paul saw a vision on the road to Damascus. Last Sunday millions of us saw a vision of the human race, happy and united, willing their fellow human beings to a pointless but wonderful victory over mental doubt and bodily frailty.
I wonder whether London could stage such a festival? We have the course, a magnificent course, but do we have the heart and hospitality to welcome the world?"
CB in 'The Observer', October 1979.
Your brother said something similar to me as we came off the Queensboro Bridge onto 1st Avenue Manhattan back in'96 and finished with "I wonder whether Campbeltown could stage such a festival? We have the course, a magnificent course, but do we have the heart and hospitality to welcome the world?"
What vision .........Hendrie and Chris!!
so i didnt record anything this morning but seein djd in the highlights makes up 4 it 
