2:09 Events

2:09 Events Organising the finest travel packages to the Worlds best marathons, from New York to the Great Wall,

Guaranteed race entry to the New York Marathon and other major events with back-up coaching advice from a group of high achieveing athletes such as Mike Gratton and Chicago Marathon and Olympic 10,000m finalist Paul Evans.

We are just over a week away from travelling to the Beaujolais International Marathon and Half Marathon, near Lyon in Fr...
14/11/2025

We are just over a week away from travelling to the Beaujolais International Marathon and Half Marathon, near Lyon in France. This is our first time organising a trip to the event, which this year partnered with our own Bacchus Wine Half Marathon and 10K, which took place at Denbies Vineyard in Dorking.
The event in Beaujolais is timed to celebrate the release of Beaujolais Nouveau a young, fresh, fruity red wine, put on sale just weeks after the harvest. The race weekend, which includes a half, a 13K and a number of trail races the day after the marathon, draws nearly 30,000 runners and offers 16 wine stops on the marathon route.
We are hoping we might learn a few things from Beaujolais to try out at the 2026 Bacchus event, entries for which continue to flood in. Although that race, scheduled for September 13, 2026, can only accommodate 3000 runners - 1800 in the half, 1200 in the 10K - and will sell out months before race day. If you miss out on that we are sure to be back at Beaujolais again in November 2026

We are now completely sold out of places and packages for the 2026 TCS Sydney Marathon. We had to turn away quite a lot ...
12/11/2025

We are now completely sold out of places and packages for the 2026 TCS Sydney Marathon. We had to turn away quite a lot of potential bookings and we are now holding a waiting list for the event should we have any cancellations or even a secondary allocation of places.
The race does not take place until August 2026 but it is another demonstration of the incredible and growing appeal of the Abbott World Marathon Majors.
We currently have no packages for any Majors available for sale. The spring programme of Tokyo and Boston sold out months ago and we are awaiting contracts for Berlin, Chicago and New York 2026 before we can start selling packages for those events. We expect to have Berlin and Chicago on sale before the end of the year with New York following soon after. Watch this space for further details.

Last change to run the Lost World Marathon in Mexico next February. We are down to our last place on this trip. The even...
11/11/2025

Last change to run the Lost World Marathon in Mexico next February. We are down to our last place on this trip. The event which runs close to the ancient Maya city of Palenque and also features a half marathon, has a breath-taking course along jungle trails, past majestic rivers, picturesque ranches and small villages.
It's more than just a run five or eight-day trip provide a fascinating glimpse into the religious and cultural practices of the Mayan people who thrived in this once vibrant and powerful city. The race takes places on Saturday February 21.

Remembrance Day is always an emotional day. Most of us have military connections and you can not move in our local area ...
10/11/2025

Remembrance Day is always an emotional day. Most of us have military connections and you can not move in our local area without running into uniformed soldiers or a range of camouflaged vehicles moving slowly along the roads.
Although our office address says Farnborough, it's really in North Camp, which was once the Northern Camp of the British Army's Aldershot garrison. Aldershot, which is just around the corner, still has a significant military presence in the area.
All of this is why we are very proud to be working with Combat Stress at a number of our events. Combat Stress, which provides mental health services to vererans, has been our charity partner for a number of years at the GRIM Challenge (Sunday January 11, 2026) and the Bacchus Wine Half Marathon (Sunday September 13, 2026). The charity has teams of runners in each race and their volunteers man drinks stations or marshal on route.
Combat Stress is a great charity doing wonderful work with former members of the British armed forces and they are always looking for more fund raisers at our events. Find out more about the work of Combat Stress at https://combatstress.org.uk

Ordinarily we'd be on the four week countdown ready for the GIRM Challenge, our wet muddy 'adventure' run around army tr...
09/11/2025

Ordinarily we'd be on the four week countdown ready for the GIRM Challenge, our wet muddy 'adventure' run around army training ground in Aldershot. This time with the military taking priority over the land on our intended race weekend, the 2025 event has moved back into January 2026, Sunday January 11 to be precise.
The race is run over four miles or eight and while that may not seem very far, the natural obstacles of mud, chest high water and some short sharp climbs, which are part of the course, will take a toll. The good news is there aren't many four mile or eight mile races so you may still run a PB. But it still won't be very fast but the aim of the race is far more 'fun' rather than pure run.

You probably do not need any extra incentive to sign up for our Longleat 10K on Sunday January 25, 2026. It's a field of...
08/11/2025

You probably do not need any extra incentive to sign up for our Longleat 10K on Sunday January 25, 2026. It's a field of 1500 runners, Longleat Safari Park is an iconic venue rarely open to running events and the race itself, although a little hilly, is traffic free and has a great, fast finish along lodge drive.
This time we'll also have a film crew on site on race day filming the event as part of behind the scenes documentary, Inside Longleat, which runs on Channel 5. There is a big team of runners taking part who work on the estate and who will be the focus of the documentary, but you could still be on TV as one of the 'extras' in the field.

We are just back from New York and it was a fabulous trip. Thank you to everyone who travelled with us. Just as soon as ...
05/11/2025

We are just back from New York and it was a fabulous trip. Thank you to everyone who travelled with us.
Just as soon as one Marathon Major trip ends we are busy with the planning for the next. We hope to have our packages for the 2026 Chicago Marathon and Berlin Marathon live and on sale by the end of November. We would hope that New York 2026 will be available in mid December.
Tokyo and Boston sold out almost immediately so the only Abbott Marathon Major we currently have on sale is the 2026 Sydney Marathon presented by Asics. Although the race is not scheduled to take place until August 30 2026, we are already down to our final ten places for the trip. Once again our packages offer guaranteed entry to the 2026 Marathon in combination with five nights hotel accommodation at the Grace Hotel, which is perfectly situated for all race activities in Sydney's Central Business District.
Although it is not a Major we still expect the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon will join the club in 2027. That is a year later than many expected but the cancellation of this year's event in October, due to severe weather, has delayed the celebrations.
We currently have packages available for the 2026 race. Anyone who runs the race in May 2026 - we have a decent group signed up - will receive credit for the race if Cape Town completes its Abbott Marathon Majors qualification and joins the Majors.
There are no guarantees but the race was well on track this year and there is genuine support from the other Majors, who ultimately make the decision, to have Cape Town in the club. So run it while you can.

Here are some medal Monday celebrations from a selection of our runners who finished yesterday's TCS New York City Marat...
03/11/2025

Here are some medal Monday celebrations from a selection of our runners who finished yesterday's TCS New York City Marathon. A particular shout out for those runners in our group who were collecting their six star finisher medals in New York.

You never tire of being in New York, it is such a fun city. Its marathon, the TCS New York City Marathon, is the perfect...
03/11/2025

You never tire of being in New York, it is such a fun city. Its marathon, the TCS New York City Marathon, is the perfect personification of all that is good about the city: it's loud, brash , sometimes tough but always entertaining.
This year's race, which at the latest count had over 59,000 finishers, which is a record for any marathon, was fabulous. The weather was perfect and the crowds, for which the race is famous, were out in force. Here are a few shots from the day, courtesy of our photographer, Kevin McGarry.

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Our Story

Many people ask what the 2:09 in 2:09 Events means and are surprised to find out that is the best marathon time of the company founder, Mike Gratton, when winning the London Marthon in 1983.

Now 2:09 Events are one of the leading running specialist travel companies in the World and have membership to TOURS, a group of travel agencies specialising in running travel from 32 different countries. This status has allowed the company to become the International Travel Partner for 5 of the 6 Abbott World Marathon Majors; Tokyo, Boston, Berlin, Chicago and New York.

Having organised events for his running club Invicta East Kent AC back in the day it was inevitable that putting on running events would feature and now 2;09 Events have organised events in Cuba and Uganda, and continue to organise in Bhutan, Cyprus and the Azores.

In the UK the portfolio now includes; South Downs Marathon and Half, Farnborough Winter Half, Longleat 10km and Bacchus Wine Marathon, 3 Santa Runs and a host of charity events throughout the year.