All events & mapMarathonTCS London Marathon
Sport · Event guide
The 2027 TCS London Marathon is a special two-day edition on April 24–25. Entrants are assigned one day, the same route is used on both days, and the finish arrangements differ.
01 · Event details
Timing: Saturday–Sunday, April 24–25, 2027 · published
Venue or host area: The 2027 course runs from Greenwich toward central London. The Saturday finish is on The Mall; the Sunday finish is at Green Park, according to the organiser's event overview.
Access: The 2027 ballot is closed and will not reopen. The organiser says Sunday charity entries have been allocated to charities, while its live Sunday directory lists places available to runners through those charities. Saturday entries have a separate directory. Confirm availability and terms directly with a charity.
02 · Plan the visit
The 2027 ballot is closed and will not reopen; the organiser says an assigned day cannot be changed. Its Double FAQ says Sunday charity entries have been allocated to charities, while the live Sunday directory lists charities with places for runners to apply for directly. Saturday charity entries have a separate directory. Confirm availability, requirements and assigned day with the charity before booking; check current start instructions and finish-area access.
03 · Location
The UK capital spreads across a wide basin around the Thames, with six major airports and a transport network that makes the airport choice part of the planning.
The airports serving London and its region:
Connections, terminals and transfer arrangements change — confirm them with the airline and the organiser rather than planning around a fixed transfer time.
The 2027 course runs from Greenwich toward central London. The Saturday finish is on The Mall; the Sunday finish is at Green Park, according to the organiser's event overview.
The catalogue marker shows London, United Kingdom at city or region level only — it is not an entrance, a gate, a course or a transfer route. For the event’s position among its category peers, open the Marathon overview and map.
04 · Overview
A mass-participation marathon from Greenwich and Blackheath into central London, run on a flat route past the Cutty Sark, across Tower Bridge, through Canary Wharf and along the Embankment. Field sizes are the largest of any major — around 50,000 — and the 2027 edition splits them across two days for the first time, with the same route used on both and finishes at The Mall on Saturday and Green Park on Sunday.
London is the charity marathon: most of the field runs for a cause, and the event has raised more than a billion pounds for charities since it began, a figure no other race approaches. It also carries one of the deepest elite fields in the sport, which is why British and international records have been set on a course that tens of thousands of slower runners traverse the same day. The ballot is famously oversubscribed, with several hundred thousand applicants for the public places.
Chris Brasher and John Disley founded the race after Brasher ran New York in 1979 and came home convinced London needed its own; the first London Marathon was run on 29 March 1981 with about 7,700 starters. The course has stayed broadly the same since — Greenwich, the Isle of Dogs, the Embankment and a finish on The Mall — with the 2027 two-day format the biggest structural change in its history. The race has been part of the World Marathon Majors since the series began in 2006, and it was elite-only in 2020.
| First held | 29 March 1981 |
|---|---|
| Series | Abbott World Marathon Majors |
| Entry | Ballot, charity places, championship and club entries |
| Course | Greenwich to central London, flat |
| 2027 format | Two days — 24 and 25 April |
05 · Research & credits
Evidence and event information reviewed 2026-10-31. Published edition facts are separated from typical timing and historical context.
No affiliate links. This guide is for travel planning, not a guarantee of entry or event conditions.
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