A lot of runners will be banking their 26.2 alongside the River Thames this weekend, among them at least two Tony winners and a Formula One champion. The London Marathon has attracted quite a few actors this year, as well as famed athletes and other public figures.
Below, here are the biggest celebrities running the London Marathon this year.
Cynthia Erivo
She can sing, she can dance, she can act, and she is only one Oscar away from EGOT status. But also, she can run. Cynthia Erivo first ran the London Marathon in 2022 with a 3:35:36 finishing time. As she toldRunner’s World, she first started running frequently when she was performing in The Color Purple on Broadway in 2016. “I found that running allowed me to process some of the show,” she told RW. She’s been a dedicated runner ever since: “Running is [meditation] for me. It helps with learning things. It helps with remembering things. It helps with processing. So, I’ve just found that that’s the thing I keep returning back to.” The day after the marathon, she’ll be back on the West End, performing in Dracula.
Joe Wicks
Widely known as “The Body Coach” in the U.K. and among his online audience, Joe Wicks is a fitness coach, author, TV presenter, and social media creator. In 2020 he launched PE with Joe, a YouTube channel intended to help children stay active during COVID-19 lockdown, and last year, he launched an animated video series called Activate With Joe Wicks, also aimed at encouraging children to exercise. So it makes sense that Wicks is not just running the London Marathon; as heannounced on Instagram on April 9, he’s “training” Daddy Pig, a character from the children’s television show Peppa Pig, to run the London Marathon and will be running alongside Daddy Pig (a.k.a. a person in a Daddy Pig costume) in support of the National Deaf Children’s Society.
Sebastian Vettel
With four Formula One Championship titles under his belt, German driver Sebastian Vettel has reached icon status among racing fans. There’s no question the man likes to go fast, and after retiring from driving in 2022, he’s taking on a different type of race. Vettel is no newcomer to running; he’s previouslyparticipated in Red Bull’s Wings For Life World Run, and according to ESPN, he organized a track run before his final race in Abu Dhabi. This will be his first marathon.
On Monday, Des Linden ran 2:35:49 at the Boston Marathon. Less than a week later, she will return to the roads in London.
Des Linden
The 2018 Boston Marathon champion is back at it again after finishing 30th in the Boston Marathon last weekend and third in the Marathon des Sables the week before. She discussed the busy April plans back in January on Nobody Asked Us, the podcast she cohosts with Kara Goucher, explaining that in London, she’ll be pacing a friend. “I’m really just out here to have some fun and to connect with communities,” she said of her planned marathon efforts.
Jack O’Connell
With recent roles in Sinners and 28 Years Later, British actor Jack O’Connell excels at playing the bad guy. But it seems like he hasn’t forgotten his role as runner Louis Zamperini in the 2014 film Unbroken, for which he had just over two weeks to prepare and train, according to Deadline. At the time, his background as a high school runner was a big help. But as he told Men’s Health in a January profile, these days he mostly works out by doing activities he enjoys, namely boxing and soccer. “It keeps my mind fit. It keeps my body fit. I fucking hate cardio, so I need to have it disguised,” he said. Still, he’s running the London Marathon this year with no disguises necessary, so perhaps he’s better at cardio than he thinks.
Patina Miller
Tony and Grammy-winning actress Patina Miller has graced our stages and screens for years, but as she told Parade last year, she’s newer to running and has made a lot of progress in just a few years. “I remember just walking a block, running a block, walking a block, running a block, cursing at myself, pushing myself and then, all of a sudden, here we are,” she said. “We’re running three miles straight, and then we’re running 10 miles, and then I’m running a half marathon, and then I’m signing up for a marathon.” To be clear, she has run multiple marathons at this point, including the NYC Marathon and the London Marathon, and as she told PIX11, she has worked closely with New York Road Runners as an ambassador for the organization’sRun for the Future program, mentoring young runners.
James Norton
London is the actors’ marathon, it seems! House of Guinness and Happy Valley star James Norton, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 22, will be running the London Marathon in support of the charity Breakthrough T1D. As he told Runner’s World in a podcast interview last week, “I also really want to prove to young diabetics that you can do things like run a marathon as a type 1.” Thanks to recent innovations in diabetes tech, he said, running a marathon with the condition is easier than it used to be. But it still isn’t easy; “The key thing is just constantly being aware of where your glucose levels are at, in the same way that you’d be looking at your watch and checking your time,” he said. “It’s just another piece of data which you have to be mindful of.”
Tilly Ramsay
Chef and TV presenter Tilly Ramsay, the 24-year-old daughter of Gordon Ramsay, is running her first marathon in London in support of the Feeding Britain, an organization that addresses food insecurity in the U.K., in partnership with plant-based butter brand Flora UK. She’s been sharing training updates like this one on her TikTok and said in a press release that running the race “has always been a dream of mine.”
Katja Vujić is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn whose work has appeared in Runner’s World, The Cut, Allure, Architectural Digest, The Boston Globe Magazine, and more. You can find more of her work on her website.
