I know! 
@FatPom I had 4 x Maurten gels but I can’t remember when now. Original plan was 5, every 30 mins, but I think I had first one at more like 45-50 mins. Also had 3 x salt tabs. 1 hr, 2hr and maybe 2.5hr ish.
Maurten gels are great for me though. I’ve been dabbling with this and that alongside them, but I’m going to stick 100% with them now. They just work for me.
Sounds spot on, well done! 
Well done GB 
… And I’ve done it again. Realised I didn’t actually put my time on my post even once! 
Finished with a 2.53.46 
Awesome @gingerbongo Really great pacing. 
Well done @gingerbongo sounds like you really enjoyed the race
Again, brilliant @gingerbongo!
Sounds like a great run, always nice to have a largely uneventful marathon 
. You’ll never know if you could have gone faster but managing cramps very close to the end sounds like you were pretty close to optimum if you ask me…only as strong as the weakest link 
Did you get any silverware for your efforts? Although running races tend to be a bit more reserved with their prize allocation (compared to tris).
Nah. 6th overall. Top 3 were 2.35-2.40. So miles away from them.
Congrats 
- cracking time. Sailed under 3. Onwards and upwards
Ace result. Podium next year - if you put a bit of work into it 
Adam Yates went 2:58 at the Barcelona marathon.
That’s good and all but none of us lot… talk… like we’re speaking… in… how you say… a foreign language… when speaking English.
ok, finally a marathon that is notionally on for me (could well still be lockdown again by then). Auckland, moved from October too late Jan, hot, humid, hilly, peak weeks theoretically over xmas.
Last time I ran 2:45 in October 2020, however with all the lockdowns we have endured over here and xmas/ny it seems my fitness has fallen off a cliff.
Barely scraped a sub 19 Park run on Sunday (my pb is 17:21 including going wrong).
Sunday I ran 2x7k at notional marathon effort, ie in normal shoes, first one felt good (wind was behind me), second was not. Getting home was then a struggle… In October I held a similar effort/pace for 26k straight…
So it seems both my speed and endurance has gone 
Since 2011 every road marathon I have finished has been sub 3, (I pulled out of 2 injured), no idea how many, high teens I think.
So the plan?
I am definitely not going to taper big, maybe a day or 2 as I have nothing to taper from and I have bigger fish to fry in coming weeks/months, so it is only a big training run anyhow.
And pace? I am unsure at the moment, I stick with the 3 hour pacer, but surely I can go a bit quicker… Basically those Alpha’s have a lot of pressure on them 
Anyway, this is the most apprehensive I have been about finishing sub 3 since well 2011… Just thought I would get that off my chest 
well it was not too bad in the end.
I had over 100k in the legs from the week including a 17:45 5k and a theoretical MP parkrun the day before, so definitely not tapered
I knew the field would not be that deep so set off at what felt like a sustainable pace, a shade over 4 min/k’s, got a bit of a surprise when the sub 3hr group over took me on the first hill (though I subsequently found out it was the 2:56 group) so not so bad.
A few people came past, I was hoping to win my AG, so made a judgement of their age and decided they were all way younger than me, so let them go
The first half is lumpy, second flat so I tried to kick on in the final 10k, but alas was not able too, which is a bit of a shame and shows where I am at.
Anyway 2:52ish, which is way better than feared a couple of weeks back and another sub 3 to add to my list oh and I won a UE boom for my AG win 
We went back into some kind of OTT event restrictions the following day, so that is that for big races again. I am still going to train to target a sub 2:40 for the next while just incase something comes back 
:
If the 2:56 passed you and you stil did 2:52 without kicking on, what happened to them?
Jacinda locked them up in a quarantine cage at mile 20
Good work!
And dropped a short 18 5K a couple of days later!
Ahh yes, fair point. I missed the 'so I kick on a bit" comment (new job taking too much of the brain these days), interestingly the “2:56 pacer” blew at 25k apparently and left his little group stranded.
To update on this, Rose ran the tenth fastest female marathon time ever this morning in Seville with 2:27:17. Just 1 second behind Steph’s best from Kew. So Phil now has the 9th and 10th fastest female marathons of all time. Got to be up there as one of the most impressive recent coaching résumé’s in British athletics.
It’s conceivable my club could have two athletes in Paris if the next year or two goes well for them both (Steph is recovering from an injury after Tokyo and ran 2:37 this morning). Steph got the first ever lifetime club membership honour recently, for being our first ever Olympian.
Very inspiring whilst I’m battling through a horrible spate of lethargy, and repetitive illness. Boston for me is going to be very much a case of complete and enjoy*. I felt like I was getting somewhere a couple of weeks ago, and then got another chest infection. Third one since Mallorca in October. It’s getting hugely demoralising. First run in 2 full weeks today, and I feel like I’m back to square one.
*at least work are now paying for my flights as I’m heading to NYC the week before, so it’s turning out to be the cheapest way to do Boston that is probably possible! So at least I can just “enjoy it” knowing I’m not going to be troubling the clock. Sub3 is probably unrealistic based on where I am, but I’d like to go under 3:10 if I can string together the next 2 months with no further setbacks