Good luck Matt, but don’t go doing any long term damage trying to hit an arbitrary target that you’ve already hit in the past. 
In the past, metatasals recovered pretty quickly when inflamation receded. I ran 12km today at 4:45 and no issues. Ive done 40km in the past week and it is all going the right direction.
Would be nice to get a GFA place in London, however, as you say not worth injuring myself. I would also like to be fit for my 100mile Ultra in 5 weeks, so a slowish marathon this weekend fits in nicely with training for that
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So I’m now in the pre race slump. Whilst I’ve publically stated that I’m not taking the race seriously, I’m also suffering with a massive crisis of confidence now. 
This stupid hamstring niggle has pushed an already risky strategy into the realms of super risky. I’ve not run for 11 days now. My CTL is dropping, I’ve a tight chest every morning, and I’m praying that this niggle sorts itself out (it does feel better today, so I’m hopeful).
But now I have that stupid, nonsensical voice in my head telling me how much fitness is bleeding away with every passing day. I’m experienced enough to ignore it, and not go and over train or anything. But it’s still there annoying me!
2 weeks ago I was pretty confident and high. Now I’m much less so. I had planned a decent, final. MP session earlier this week, which would have allowed me to set my final targets. Now I’ve not only lost the run in my legs, but also the mental and planning aspects.
Still, it is what it is.
Nutrition and hydration has arrived. I’ve gone with @stenard and bought some PH to try out. I’m a salty, sweaty, crampy pig. So hoping a bottle of the 1500 pre race and then a couple of tabs on the hour at 1 and 2 should sort me out. 
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If that’s true then the stuff is amazing. You appear to have only bought one sachet, but I definitely subscribe to their recommended strategy of one bottle before bed and another before the race.
For Malaga, I actually just went with the day before pre-load of sodium, and then race day morning and during the race was all Maurten
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That is a horrible feeling, you know it’s not logical but you just can’t shake it. You’ll be right mate. 
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@gingerbongo I’m guessing it’s not fitness bleeding away, but fatigue
“You’ll be reet” is the expression that comes to mind 
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I don’t think I’ve done enough to have any fatigue! 
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I gave the maurten a go and based it off MARATHON PLAN / Maurten worked really well. Although near the end it was hard to eat it. I was having a gel just before each drink station (every 5k).
I’m sure it will go really well. Good luck!
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I think Maurten may be my next experiment
I’m going for a nice, round every 30 mins. 
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Starting to get a bit nervous about this now. We’ve been back and forth, well trying to initiate a back and forth to be more precise, with the organisers all week as it looked like the course was going to be significantly short. They’d removed a small loop from the previous version, but it wasn’t clear where they’d made up the extra. Finally got a response and we’ve been assured it’s accurate. I think they just used the same illustrated map with the mile markers, aid stations etc instead of updating it (cost issue i’d guess as it’s only a charity event). So we shall see.
As i’ve noted previously i’m now on a fortnight with no running at all. Hammy seems to have recovered so i’m going to go for a little runch today. Might throw in some ~MP kms to see how things feel. I’d imagine my legs are going to be rusty as!
Commutes have brought my overall CTL back up to my autumn peak, so i know the aerobic engine is working fine. Just a total unknown on how the legs are going to cope.
Decided i’ll set out with a pace range in mind as opposed to stressing over an exact x per km. It’s a twisty course with bridges, gates etc that will knock momentum, so i don’t want to be worrying about how i’m going to make up 7 seconds or whatever, when a slow km inevitably hits.
Unfortunately weather forecast has moved from perfect to windy; in the worst direction as well, a Northerly that will batter us on the final few miles. Still time for that to change. Today would’ve been perfect - it’s cold, still and sunny. Absolutely gorgeous.
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Sounds like a plan mate. Not sure what you can do about the course length, it’s frustrating to be under because at least with over you can calculate your 42.2 time.
re the corners and slowing down, don’t stress, everyone will be the same. At Goodwood last year, there was a whole section that was windy AF and also a bit remote for the GPS signal, so I went from running 5.10s to suddenly 5.50-6.10 and I knew i wasn’t slowing down that much. Decided to ignore that watch on the that bit and go on feel.
You are experienced enough to know your RPE on these sections and overly reliance on the watch is just a distraction when it’s technical.
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I suspect fitness wise you’ll be fine despite the couple of weeks off. You’ll have recovered a bit more and less fatigue.
A couple of easy runs might get the rustiness out.
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Not quite the same @gingerbongo, but I also haven’t ran for 2 weeks but if I can manage a 5k jog tomorrow I’ll enter a 70.3 for Sunday so long as I don’t think I’ll do serious damage.
We’ll be reet 
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I was lucky enough to go more with the Elite plan. I had my family on the course and I think they had two or three small bottles of 320 with a gel also rubber banded to them. I think in the end I only collected two of them, and the sweetness was hard to force down, but it was good to have a combo of fluid based carbs as well as gels. Meant carrying less from the start too.
I’ve still only ever tried one caf gel, and that was within the final 10k or so of that marathon. I nearly threw up. Did not like the taste at all. So I just stick with the standard ones. Very much personal pref though, as I think Poet prefers the caf ones
Right, so mission sub 3 accomplished. It was a weird race. I didn’t look at total time or average pace once during the race. I crossed the line, didn’t even look at the time and pressed save. It wasn’t until a mate asked how I did that I actually had to bring it up on the watch. I was so focussed on the process, that I literally forgot about the outcome. It was a very refreshing way to run a race.
High level, I think it was about as perfect a race as I think I could’ve run with what I had on the day. Kms were consistent, and inevitable calf cramps only kicked in at km 39. Stopped to stretch, and then somehow managed to squeeze to the end without them totally derailing, with some weird forced heel strike. But more of that later.
So still hadn’t really decided what I was going to aim for when I drove up. Had been having a back and forth over days with a mate. He wanted to just go for 4.15s, I was leaning towards 4s. We started running and inadvertently ended up in between the two.
I’m not sure if I could’ve run a tad faster had I started quicker, or if my mate was my saviour by keeping me on a short leash for the first half. We separated at about 25km when he was clearly struggling. First lap went without major drama. It was twisty, we had to negotiate walkers and dogs and bikes etc as all was on public mixed use paths. But we knew that. Got worse on 2nd lap as it got later and wa s a pretty nice day.
Anyway, at 25km I kicked on from kms slipping to 4.12 or so, and dialled up to about 4.05s. Quickly picked up a lad we’d been trailing for miles, and surprisingly he latched on straight away. He ended up shadowing me for the next ten miles. We picked off another couple, but field wasn’t deep so knew we were well within top 10. The top 3 were all sub 2.40 so were literally miles up the road!
It was weirdly uneventful. I got my nutrition right, I took on lots of fluid, carrying water bottles for a few kms at a time. I took PH salt tabs. The calf cramps I think were fatigue/impact related as I was careful with dehydration. It got surprisingly warm running into the sun, with wind behind. I was chucking water over my head and neck. Nasty headwind back for last few kms though!
Cramps threatened with a few km to go. Here we go again I thought. Stopped to stretch, told my shadow to crack on. Picked up again, saw that he hadn’t moved away too much. Quickly caught him and dropped him. Really annoying as I had more in the legs, but I couldn’t toe off, had to flop hard on my heels to make sure the calf didn’t engage.
Still, very chuffed. Wi have to check, but pretty sure it was neg split. Slowest kms were 39 and 40 when cramps hit. 4.20 & 4.13 though, so can’t complain!
Sorry, that’s really poorly put together. Just on my phone with a beer. Maybe I’ll rewrote tmw a bit more coherently (maybe I won’t! ).
6th overall. Another sub 3. Course seemed maybe a tad short (again) despite numerous emails to the organisers when we feared it was short. But that initial concern was over a km. This was 100m or so. But it was formally measured apparently. Who knows 🤷🏼
Frankly I don’t really care. If I cared about the time, I would’ve looked at my watch at the end.
Not a bad hit out relying completely on historical base and some cycling.
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Really cracking performance and execution @gingerbongo well done. We don’t get many of those days in sport - drink it in!
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Cheers!
Me being me I’m now wondering whether I didn’t try hard enough, and I should have gone out a bit quicker. Could I have gone faster?!
Who knows. If I set off quicker, maybe I’d have blown. There’s a lot to be said for that more relaxed, no pressure mindset though. Easier said than done of course, and the reason I was relaxed was that I didn’t invest properly going into it.
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Great race Pete and well executed.
What was the nutrition strategy?
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Missed opportunity without the orange shorts
Seriously though, great running Pete 
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