Just finished my last long run before the marathon. Home to Tower Bridge and back, following the last 4 miles of the marathon route itself, nearly arrested by some burly policemen who were closing off the road in front of Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guard – I thought the crowds were starting early to get the best places ahead of the marathon.
Last time I ran London, in 2006, my race profile looked like this:
Plainly I went out too fast – I started the race on the white line (literally at the very front, with 1000s of people behind me, of whom at least 10,000 overtook me in the first 2 miles despite me going as fast as I could). I’m not sure if I’m starting in the same place this year, but I know enough this time to get over to the side as quickly as possible. And then I can run a little more like I ran in NY later that same year:
I finished a little slower in NY – 3:58 versus 3:51 – but I put that down to it being the second marathon in a year. My plan for London is to go out at a pretty even pace of around 5:20 to 5:30 and try and maintain that through the whole race, so finishing around 3:50 (allowing for some slowdown at the end).
For those out to watch the race, here’s the course map – but there will be better maps in the newspapers in the couple of days beforehand:
<With the training done, the challenge now is to stay healthy, eat well, get some rest in the couple of days leading up to the race and then run to plan. Over the last few months I've put a lot of running in:
The total since September is just short of 800km. This year’s totals compare pretty favourably with those for London and New York in 2006, although I was little behind last month (put that down to a week of skiing).
