Its been a while since I’ve mentioned the London Marathon here on this site so it’s time for an update. I have an entry to this years London Marathon, being held on 26 April, and the journey so far has been a little frustrating to say the least. It all stems back to September 2008 when I twisted my ankle on a Sunday long run.

On 8 March I just about managed a 13 mile run but ended up hobbling around with pain near my left knee for a few days following. Things were not looking great. However, the past few weeks things have picked up quite nicely. I’ve been stretching and massaging my injuries away and have managed some solid final weeks of training.

Here’s a summary of my training over the past two months:

• w/e 15 February: 17 miles total (long run: 13.9 miles)
• w/e 22 February: 7 miles total (long run: 4 miles!)
• w/e 1 March: 6 miles total (long run: 3 miles!)
• w/e 8 March: 26 miles total (long run: 13.1 miles)
• w/e 15 March: 34 miles total (long run: 15 miles)
• w/e 22 March: 39 miles total (long run: 17.7 miles)
• w/e 29 March: 38 miles total (long run: 20.8 miles)
• w/e 5 April: 38 miles total (long run 20.1 miles)
• w/e 12 April: 40 miles total (long run 21 miles)

Most marathon training schedules call for your final long run being three weeks out from race day. As I’m not planning on ‘racing’ at London I chose to do my final long run two weeks out - and that was today (12 April). It just so happened that it was my longest run to date (ever) and my long runs have got progressively faster over recent weeks which is helping my confidence no end.

So, things are looking good (and about a million times better than they were a month or so ago). With two weeks to go I can now start my tapering phase, where I cut back on training so ensure that I get to the start line on Sunday 26th feeling fresh and ready to go.

Most marathon schedules will have you running some races to get some speed into your legs and general race practice. For me, I’ve avoided races as much as possible. OK, I run the Bushy parkrun 5k events most weeks, so I guess they give me good race practice (i.e., pacing and running in close proximity to others). What they don’t give me is a realistic view of how my training is going over longer distances, although as I’ve been doing my long runs close to my marathon pace I’m not overly bothered by not racing much at the moment.

Finally, I need to have a plan for what time to aim for on the day. The weather can no doubt cause me to make changes to my plan, but I need to know what to target and ensure I pace myself correctly on the day. As for what exactly that time is, I’ll tell you in a couple of weeks…