I've run some marathons back in the day

though you'd never guess it to look at me.

For your first, forget about the time. Seriously. If your half is 1h45 your full mara "could" be a shade under 4h (which is an excellent time). However, the difference between 10k and half is much much less than the difference between half and full mara.

Basically, your body will run out of glycogen at about 20 miles. This never happens for 10k or half distances so it will be new to you. There's a reason people say a marathon is actually a six mile race, you just need to run 20 miles to get to the start line.

You may want to have some light speed work in your training regime anyway - longer tempo-style runs or faster mile/slowermile interval sessions - but by far the most important session is your weekly long run.

You also need to not get injured. Sports massages help as does some cross-training e.g. instead of 5 days running, do 3 days running, a day on the bike and a challenging walk (walking is suprisingly effective as cross training as long as you don't dawdle and go up and down some hills).

You need to do at least one 20-miler before the race. Don't go over 20 miles in training. For a first mara I reckon just one 20 miler, three weeks before race day. Two weeks before do a 12 miler and one week before maybe an 8 miler.

Taper properly and hard - you won't get any fitter in the two weeks before the race but you could get injured. Still do the same sessions but make them shorter.

Sounds really obvious but practice hydration and nutrition routines. I experimented with loads of different stuff and settled on SiS gels for nutrition. There are water stations round the course and you'll already know how best to use those.

First ten miles of the race should feel almost comically slow. Second ten miles you'll still run that same pace but it will feel like an effort., Final six miles keep that pace going but expect your body to object.

Don't waste energy waving at the crowd etc.

London is an utterly brilliant marathon course - enjoy it to the max! There's a massive downhill 2-3 miles in, don't push it down there just take it steady. You'll pass a crowd at 14mi and another at the underpass at about 18mi of people who did run faster down that and have subsequently run out of fuel.

If you need to walk for a bit, walk for a bit. Last couple of miles the road dips and rises and it's perfectly fine to jog down the dips but walk up the rises.

Have an utterly brilliant time. I'm envious, though I don't think I have another marathon in this old body.

Posted By: Old Man on January 25th 2024 at 20:37:05

Message Thread

Reply to Message

In order to add a post to the WotB Message Board you must be a registered WotB user.

If you are not yet registered then please visit the registration page. You should ensure that their browser is setup to accept cookies.

Log in