The Marathon Day

Marathon Countdown

Reducing your training intensity is crucial in the last three weeks of your schedule. Your body needs to recover and be ready for the marathon challenge.

Diet and nutrition are extremely important in these weeks, avoid junk foods and alcohol in the last 7 days making sure you cut down your food intake to complement the tapered training.

Finally... make sure you get your beauty sleep!!

The Marathon Day

Get there in good time, get a pre-race snack and drink and do your warm up (a few minutes brisk walk will do).

Mass Starts

Many marathons have mass starts; thousands of runners setting off at the same time. It can take a while to separate so use the first 2 or 3 miles as the warm up. 

The Race

Keep your pace, even if it feels easy, you need to save your energy.

The drinks stations are filled with refreshments, and plenty of helpers if you need. Take advantage of these stations, making sure you refuel at every opportunity and try to walk through these stations, to build your energy back up.

Half way through and you should feel the challenge begin, this is where all the training you've done kicks in. Take breaks if you feel very tired; a one minute or so walk every so often will help you push on.

Hitting 'the wall'

20 miles in and you've hit 'the wall', your muscles are aching, you're fatigued and the finish line seems like a million miles away.

This is where mental strength needs to kick in, and the crowds will (hopefully) be cheering. As soon as you can see the finish line, it's all about determination!

Your body will have been through a lot through training, you need to give yourself time to recover. Don't lose everything you've worked at! Have a look through our Recovery: Post Marathon pages for more info.