The 2025 London Marathon

Running Update:

The London Marathon was a wonderful experience—lots of inspiring people, a great course, and an unbelievable number of enthusiastic spectators!  

Todd and I arrived Thursday morning—this was our first trip together without children in 22 years!  However, as soon as we arrived we immediately went our separate ways :)  Todd traveled on to Oxford to give a research talk, while I headed to our hotel in London.  That afternoon I hit the Expo.

The next day was spent adjusting to the new time zone.  I did go for a short shakeout run around St James’s Park, which was close to our hotel.

View of Buckingham Palace from the bridge in St James's Park

Pre-race gear shot!

I found the most enjoyable part of the event was getting to know my teammates.  Ten of us ran for the Children’s Tumor Foundation.  We had met over Zoom many times in the lead up to the marathon, but it was particularly special to meet them all in person. 

Happy Hour Friday night

Leanna and Kara

L to R: Kara, me, Leanna, Lydia (our captain), Eddie, and Anne-Marie

Eddie and his Dad

Brunch the morning before the race

Our team included:

• Leanna Scaglione, the 2025 Children’s Tumor Foundation Ambassador (https://www.ctf.org/news/meet-our-2025-nf-ambassador-leanna-scaglione/).  She and I have run the NYC Half together several times.  She lives with NF2-related schwannomatosis herself, diagnosed as a teenager.  She has had multiple surgeries for NF, including brain surgery to remove a vestibular schwannoma and insert a cochlear implant two months before running the 2024 NYC Half!

• Eddie Purtell, the 2022 Children’s Tumor Foundation Ambassador (https://www.ctf.org/news/meet-our-2022-nf-ambassador-eddie-purtell/)!  Eddie lives with NF1 himself, diagnosed at birth, and had his left eye removed at age three due to an optic nerve glioma.  He has previously run the Chicago Marathon for CTF.

• Michael, whose teenaged daughter has NF1.  Michael runs ultras, so the marathon was no sweat for him :)

• Kara, a geneticist and NF researcher at NYU!

I also got to meet Anne-Marie, an NF Mom from the UK.  Anne-Marie has three children, the youngest of whom—her 15 year old son—has NF.  She was running the London marathon for the Childhood Tumour Trust—the UK version of the Children’s Tumor Foundation.  I had served on the Medical Board of the Childhood Tumour Trust for several years and still followed their activities, so I reached out to her when I learned she would be running.  She gamely joined the CTF team for Happy Hour! 

Finally, I met in-person another friend from the Childhood Tumour Trust—the actress and NF Mom, Rakie Ayola!  Rakie and her family were waiting at mile 4 on the race course handing out treats to the runners during the marathon.  Watch her Instagram reel!

The marathon route had some of the best sight-seeing I’ve experienced on a race course.  Most of it ran along the River Thames.  We started in Blackheath in Southeast London, ran through Greenwich and past its famous clipper ship, the Cutty Sark.  We ran west through South London, past the Shard—the tallest building in the UK—and the Old London City Hall in Southwark, until mile 12 where we crossed the river over the Tower Bridge!  We ran by the Tower of London, then turned east again to the Isle of Dogs.  We ran through Canary Wharf and past Canada One Square.  Then we turned west again through North London, past St Paul’s Cathedral, through Victoria Embankment where we could see the London Eye across the Thames.  Finally, we reached Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and turned toward St James’s Park.  We crossed the finish line on the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace!

Me crossing the Tower Bridge!

Me running through Westminster...

and passing Buckingham Palace!

The 2025 London Marathon was the largest ever:  I was one of 56,640 finishers in the 2025 TCS London Marathon.   This was a new Guinness World Record title for the largest number of finishers in a marathon, overtaking the record we set at the 2024 Berlin Marathon :)  And there was a record number of spectators, too!  An estimated 800,000 people came out to cheer us on.  Todd snapped some photos of the crowds along the course in Westminster:

Spectators along Birdcage Walk near mile 25

Spectators by the Houses of Parliament

and by the Millenium Bridge

Todd was waiting for me at mile 25!

Todd's view of the crowd while trying to reunite with me

The crowd on Horse Guards Parade

As brilliant as the race was, it was hot (70 degrees!) and I was slow, so I can’t deny I was relieved when it was over :)

We encountered my teammate Michael as I was limping back to the hotel

The most important thing about the 2025 London Marathon is that Jane and I raised almost 

$15,000 

for the Children's Tumor Foundation!  

THANK YOU to all our generous donors for helping us one step closer to a cure for NF <3

Jane Update:

Jane has committed to college!  Meet a member of the Dickinson College Class of 2029!  We are so proud of her and excited for her to take this next step.