Good running. The key with the marathon is the consistency of pace/effort. If you go out too quick you’ll have a really unpleasant last 6-8 miles. I deliberately did a 21 mile long run a few weeks ago where I ran the first 13 miles at 1/2 marathon pace PB pace. The next 8 miles was hell but I wanted to know my limits to stop myself getting carried away on the day.
Don’t get carried away by all the people rushing off at the beginning of the race if you get your pacing right you’ll be running past them in the second half of the race, which is a great feeling.
If you’ve done so already, download the Marathon Talk podcast from this week onwards as they’ll be taking people through race strategies up until the Marathon.
I’ve got Manchester on Sunday and I’m starting to get nervous, I want to run 7 1/2 minutes faster than last year to get under 3 1/2 hours. Managed 10 miles at 7.30min/mile last Friday on the back of a 10 miler the day before, which 30 sec/mile faster than Marathon pace and i’ve lots of long runs so should be OK.