Now that the dust is settling (notice I did not say ‘settled’ as in the past-tense, since it is very much still settling; just come and see the state of the back of the store) we’re just about able to reset and reflect on what was one of the biggest weeks in Runlimited’s short little life. The Club Lounge: a four-day extravaganza celebrating all things marathon running and welcoming the community to London. As part of our reflection, we’d be remiss if we didn’t run a little recap for the mag, too.

The lead up to an event like this doesn’t start just a month or two in advance and with a few emails and handshakes. In fact, it’s almost an entire year (almost, not quite) in the making, where we identify concepts, a space to host, all of our brand partners, and much more. Safe to say, The Club Lounge has been on the minds of the Runlimited team for some time – it was a long haul flight, if we’re sticking to the theme of the week. 

Speaking of the concept, we’d been chatting with our good mates at Bandit since London Marathon 2025 about how we can elevate our partnership and build on what we did that year. Exposition was fun, but this was going to be more fun! Leaning in to the Transatlantic partnership of Brooklyn-based Bandit and us here in London, we knew there was something to play with on the theme of travel. After locking in Nike as another of our key brand partners, we knew things were going to be big, so what could we do to make it special?

Never a team who settles for ‘good enough’ our creative and marketing team steadily looked at London as a city and the Marathon as a race and what they represent: community, togetherness, diversity, a destination, a place to push yourself and discover your limitations, a celebration of running from around the world. The concept was borne of these ideas – a place where people come from near and far to prepare to take-off onto the course for race day.

Other brands were brought into the fold, including some of our long-time faves like Maurten, SUMS and Coros, and recent partnerships like Wahoo and Always In Motion. Everything a runner and a spectator could need for a Sunday spent out on the London Marathon course was in one place, just like… a departure lounge of an airport! And thus The Club Lounge was formed. Over the coming months, things were pulled together, all pointing towards the airport/airline theme: plane seats, departure graphics, in-flight meal carts, luggage trolleys and even a trip to a cut-in-half Boeing 757 to film our social media campaign video. Meetings, talks, product buys, venue fit-outs consumed us until… it was here.

Wednesday was opening day where we mainly welcomed our closest community partners, running leaders, industry and media pros and a bunch of our really good pals in for a showcase of what we’d built. Callum from Motional Intelligence podcast hosted a chat with our co-founders Molly and Jonty to chat about what we’ve been up to and what we’re planning for the week ahead, we knocked back a few delicious Origin flat-whites and vegan pastries before rolling straight into a live podcast taping with Joshua Rowe hosted by Liam from the Runlimited team (literally me writing this right now, shoot me your feedback on my hosting skills). Josh is the nutrition specialist behind Maurten’s research into hydrogels and product testing, and serves as the man behind Sabastian Sawe’s fuelling – more on this in our blog here. All of this was geared up towards our big opening party, where we welcomed a couple of hundred folks in for a celebration of what’s to come, including beers from Roley’s and Lucky Saint. And no opening party of Runlimited’s would be complete without a race around the block. Paper planes as relay batons, chaotic energy and a bunch of fast people ran to determine bragging rights and for a sweet haul of prizes from Nike, Bandit and a chance to win a Chicago Marathon entry. 

Thursday brought more people into town and we opened up the doors to even more people including a number of lucky people who got the chance to attend a lace and jewellery customisation session with Nike and Clarisse Valencia. Here, we had a selection of pendants and beads to create a good-luck charm for race day, embossed with your initials or those of your club. Into the evening, 60 of our community members came by for a special dinner which kicked off with a mindset and motivation session, which our own Jonty hosted with Nike coaches Bennett and Intysar, who talked about prepping to be your best on race day. Sitting down for dinner, runners were arranged into groups of similar pace goals, meaning we saw a number of them chatting about running together on race day. Atis and Mildred’s supplied the fuel, and Nike once again brought guests. Callie Hauger-Thackery and Joe Wigfield gave some sage advice on pushing through the tough moments using their experiences as two of the UK and Europe’s finest road-racers.

It was more of the same on Friday, culminating in a brilliant Maurten panel entitled Breaking Limitations. The talk centred on women’s performance, and how to make the most of training, racing and health as a female athlete in this sport of ours. The panel included Sahra-Isha Muhammad-Jones, founder of ASRA women’s running community and researcher into sport and culture; Florence Papougnot of Hot Boys Athletics, perhaps London’s fastest group of women; Sally Radcliffe, who has been a big advocate for women’s health and performance alongside her career as an elite runner; and Molly Bryan, co-founder of Runlimited who needs no introduction as a runner and community builder for all in the sport. Maurten’s Ainhoa Prieto discussed a host of topics with the panel, most notably nutrition and fuelling around racing and training, menstrual cycles and even how to balance training around Ramadan. 

And then like that, it was Saturday. Our final day already, 24-hours and counting to flight time! We threw open the doors to a line down the road for our Training Block Finale shakeout run that went off in perfect morning sunshine for a 5km jog around the streets of Shoreditch. It was once again led by our crack team of expert pacers from the Training Block, who we couldn’t have prepped for this race without. Back to the shop, coffee, refuel and special guest appearances from Sir Mo Farah and Emile Cairess, who chatted to a packed out room of runners soaking in the wisdom from two of Britain’s best men’s athletes, the old-guard and the prodigy. The day didn’t slow down until we finally shut the doors at 19;00 on the dot, no late boarding, the flight was ready to depart. 

Now, all that was left was to put our seat back upright, make sure tray tables are stowed and seatbelt fastened, and prepare for takeoff. London Marathon 2026 en-route to The Mall.