at £150 a night
Holy crap!! (Perhaps this is another reason I prefer not to travel, come to think of it.)
Anyway -- don't you have to be "drawn" from some kind of lottery to participate in the London Marathon? It's not just a matter of signing up, I don't think.
Another of my motley (which doesn't actually mean "mottled," but it could in his case) ---> Another of my motley friends who hangs out in your country did one several years back. His nattering and fretting while he waited to see if he was picked ... and his subsequent jubilation ... was baffling.
But then he's really into sports. Which could explain why he's still single at 50-something. I've mentioned this to him. More than once.
There is a lottery or you can 'buy' your way in by means of pledging a lot of cash to a charity.
This is what @bingbabe did, as you have to pay to even apply for the lottery usually ending up with a negative.
Its not ideal, and raising that kind of cash was hard.. but its a once only thing. She's not doing it again.