1. It will hurt

Obvious? Maybe. But what I didn’t know was how much it was going to hurt long before race day.

Running more miles than you ever have before hurts.  Speed sessions hurt, long runs hurt, short runs hurt, even rest days hurt…when you  go to bed, when you wake up, when your alarm goes off at 7am at the weekend. It all hurts.

But trumping them all is when your friends stay in the pub for a late one on the jagerbombs, and you trundle off home with your tail between your legs because you need to knock out 9 miles in the morning.  Nothing hurts quite like that.

It’s gonna hurt. Get used to it.

2. You will have bad days

There will probably be quite a few, marathon training is never plain sailing.  When I was training for Paris I attempted a 15 mile run…