The time has come.

Well just near the end of the 16 weeks training putting in 624 miles and it all boils down to preparing correctly over the next 3 days. Mess around too much and it could make for a disaster on Monday.

Anyway since my last blog it has just been all about taper taper and taper. My schedule from the beginning was to do 37 miles on week 14, then 25 in week 15 and 13 in week 16. To say I stuck to the plan for the last 3 weeks would be an understatement. Bang on for each week. I have a 2.5 miles stretch the legs tomorrow evening and that’s it. My question though is was the taper correct. Now that it’s done I feel that I started tapering a week too early. Maybe a 14 day taper would have been better. This I will use as learning for my next schedule. What’s done now is done.

The one advantage with pulling back on training is that any niggles that I was carrying have gone away so I can feel confident that I am not carrying an injury into the race. Ok I am getting the phantom pains but at this stage I know that they are my imagination. All will be good on the morning.

My carb loading is well and truly in full swing now. Water and pasta. No doubt by Sunday I will be sick of pasta and rice but let’s not complain about it now. I find the water intake means I am a regular visitor to the toilet at the moment.

Ever since my first marathon where I prepared really badly, I have learned some tricks that work for me in the run up to a marathon. Ok the normal pasta rice and water is on the menu but 2 other things that I now find essential - Pretzel sticks & Dioralyte. I lose a lot of sodium during a long race. I used to cramp a lot. Don’t know the science of how they work but when I use these 2 products in the last 3 days I don’t cramp as much. Pretzels sticks build up my carbs while also increasing the sodium in my body. The nutrition values for 100g Pretzel sticks are Energy 390 kcal, Protein 10.6g Carbs 78.1g and fat 4.0g. This mixed with water always works a treat for me and in the last few days I nibble constantly on them. It also helps to keep my sweet tooth at bay. The Dioralyte is something a club mate told me about a while ago. You can get it at any pharmacy over the counter. What I do is mix up the powder with water and over the space of 3 days I will sip it during the day. It helps with dehydration. I’m not telling anybody to do this but all I can say is that it helps me.

For me I love the last 2 days and I think getting ready is as enjoyable as the race itself. I am meticulous when it comes to prep for a marathon. I tend not to leave anything to chance. My morning breakfast on race day is porridge and a bagel at around 6 o’clock. Anyway learning from the last 2 years, Dublin at the end of October is a cold place. A throw away t-shirt and this time a pair of throw away gloves is a must. (Aldi have handy ones for €3 at the moment)

All the above being said then all I need to do is pack in my gels, 2 biofreeze sachets and get to the start line. I always drink a litre of water with a slow release gel mixed into it in the last hour before the race. I believe it helps me in the first 10 miles. 4 gels is what I use in the marathon. My first marathon I didn’t use any gels and boy did I pay for it. Never again. Now I use the 4 but my forth is usually around mile 23 and I find it hard to get it in to me at that stage but once I’ve taken it I do find the benefits. The Biofreeze sachets are extremely handy if I start to cramp. I rub the Biofreeze into the cramped area and it relieves the cramping.

Lastly my target time for this marathon will be 3:15. If I can do this it will 8 minutes off my time last year. It brings me towards my target of a marathon under 3 hours by the time I’m 40. (Hopefully) I plan on going out at 7:20 per mile and fingers crossed it will work out. I know my last 5 miles will be difficult to keep the pace around 7:25 but I am going to give it a try. A great piece of advice one of the experienced runners in the club told me was that you will have 3 or 4 bad periods in a marathon but you’ve got to remember you will come out of it. If you can bear this in mind during the race it actually works. This is something I always use to pull myself out of bad periods. The crowds all along the way help to spur me on. I always try to thank the people clapping as I run. When the chips are down I find the crowd one of the best ways to get out of it. Every high 5 to a kid brings me one step closer to the end. I’m sure everybody has their own ways to get through the 26 miles 385 yards and God don’t we all need it!

Anyway off I go and best of luck to anybody else who is running a marathon in the upcoming weeks.

Slan