schedules, and aim for a conservative first half that will allow you to assess your fitness halfway round the marathon and speed up or slow down from there. As a rough guide, do the first half 10-15 minutes slower than your best recent half-marathon time

(aka peter_thompson_14) Target Time: 2:55-3:00 RACE TIME: 2:49 Pete says: Thirteen miles into the race I felt great, so I decided to smash my target. I upped my pace to just under 4 min/km, almost ran a half-marathon PB and stormed

't notice much difference during the first half, but it will have affected your ability to sustain the pace, as you missed the important long runs.Q. What's the most common pacing mistake made by first time marathon runners? SqueakzA. New runners aim for too

, I ran 1:29 for the Bath Half Marathon six weeks ago, and although I missed some training since then due to injury, I only missed one long run, so I felt 3:30 was comfortably within my reach for the marathon. The start was great. I was in start pen

week: 9 weeksRunning 5+ days a week: 8 weeksHalf-marathonRunning 2 days a week: 18 weeksRunning 3 days a week: 16 weeksRunning 4 days a week: 14 weeksRunning 5+ days a week: 12 weeksMarathonRunning 2 days a week: Not advisableRunning 3 days a week: 22

forum threads. You can also find videos demonstrating all of Sarah's key stretches mentioned in the webchat.Read the whole forum debateQ. I ran my first half-marathon two weekends ago at Silverstone. I've trained over 12 weeks, gradually increasing my

some most of our faster forumites blush. Still if enthusiasm counts for anything, then I'm a runner.However, as much I love running, it appears that running doesn't love me. Since upping my mileage to train and race in the Liverpool Half-Marathon