As London’s younger sibling prepares to be even bigger this year, organisers hope that it can once again be a catalyst to inspire the next generation and create a healthier future.

The Mini London Marathon celebrated its 40th edition last year and organisers marked the special occasion by inviting previous championship athletes back to take part in a “40th wave” around the 2.6km course, as well as celebrating the achievements of the youngsters involved.

Approximately 18,000 people started on Horse Guards Parade and crossed the famous finish line on The Mall, including both the championships races – incorporating under-13, under-15 and under-17 categories – and the mass participation element.

The list of former competitors at the event reads like a who’s who of British middle and long distance running, including athletes such as Keely Hodgkinson, Mo Farah, Josh Kerr, Jake Wightman, Laura Muir, David Weir, Hannah Cockroft, Alex Yee and Alistair Brownlee, to name just a few.

It's what makes the Mini London Marathon so special. Since 2022, it has been given more room to breathe, taking place the day before the 26.2-mile extravaganza.

The event provides thousands of youngsters with the opportunity to experience the feeling of running, walking or wheeling themselves along those famous roads. Whether they complete one mile (for children in reception to year seven) or 2.6km (for those in years four to 12).

For Ben Cooper, Event Lead at the Mini London Marathon, the prospect of seeing 50,000 kids crossing the finish line – still the aim of London Marathon Events – is a tantalising one. Progress is steady, with 22,000 finishers expected on Saturday (April 25).

"It's all about inspiring activity," Cooper says. "We've taken it from what was already a significant event, but it was previously on the morning of the London Marathon, to possibly having over 20,000 taking part. 

"It's still a big jump to 50,000, but it's something that we are really sort of focused on getting to. To be honest, a couple of years ago, if you said, would we get to 22,000? I probably would have scratched my head and wandered how were we going to do that?

"But what we do each year, is we put on high standards and a real good experience for the athletes. We want to grow it with care, so they still have that positive experience and take away the sort of the good memories. 

"Someone like Keely is an inspiration to all the athletes, and the same goes for our para and wheelchair waves, where they'll see what David has done and want to be a part of it."

There will be a new under-12 championships category this year and there are also ambitions to expand the Mini London Marathon in Schools, where participants are invited to run, jog, walk, wheel or be guided around a two-mile course within their school setting.

Since launching in 2020, more than one million children have finished the Mini London Marathon in Schools, with each pupil receiving a certificate and every school receiving a trophy for being involved. With the aim of getting kids involved with physical activity at a local level, not just in central London, the goal is for half a million children alone to take part in the initiative this year (the timeframe is from April 25 to May 1). Organisers are aiming for that figure to be one million in a single year by the end of the decade.

Such is the breadth of the Mini London Marathon now that kids across the entire UK are taking part. Fair Isle Primary School, which is located on Fife, is the smallest school involved with just three pupils. Le Voies School is a Social, Emotional and Mental Health School based in Guernsey, while patients from the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital will be staying active around their care on the day as well.

"We want to help create kids get into the habit of being active," Cooper adds. "We're eager for young people to do exercise routinely and regularly, whether that's in a parkrun, through the Daily Mile, getting involved with their local athletics club, or just putting on a pair of trainers and going out for a run. 

"We do think we can help in providing that moment of inspiration. I think the fact we've got schools involved from the Shetland Isles to Guernsey encapsulates the magic of the London Marathon, and the feeling it gives people goes way beyond just one city." 

Over the past three years the London Marathon Foundation has also given £1.19m to junior parkrun – a weekly event in which children aged four to 14 tackle a 2km course – to support its growth.

According to an impact report looking at junior parkrun for 2024/2025, there was a 26% rise in the number of weekly finishers. This period also saw 27 new events launched – with eight percent of these in the lowest deprivation quartile – and 265,000 different people taking part in junior parkruns.

Sport England announced yesterday, for the 2024/2025 academic year, that the number of children and young people (between the ages of 5-16) playing sport and taking part in physical activity in England is at the highest level since the body created the Active Lives Survey in 2017-18.

The report also showed that there are more than half a million (580,000) more children meeting the Chief Medical Officers’ (CMO) guidelines of taking part in an average of 60 minutes or more of sport and physical activity every day than there were seven years ago – an increase of 5.8%.

However children and young people from the least affluent families are the least likely to be active, with only 45% meeting the CMO guidelines, compared to 58% of those from the most affluent families.