of water along with it. 9. Learn to drink on the run Lengthy races – 10Ks and longer – often have drinks stations to replace lost fluids, and if you are running a marathon they will help you to scale the dreaded ‘wall’. Drinking on the run is an import

bad?" Are you returning to running after a few years of inactivity? Are you motivated by the event T-shirts? Do you want a marathon medal? Do you want to start running in order to run or because you think running might be a means to some other end

This week's reader completed the London Marathon using a run/walk strategy – but she now wants to cut out the walks altogether, and it's not proving too easy. Can you offer any advice? "I'm getting really annoyed with myself. I trained for FLM using

count, and no running to a boring day-in-day-out regime. I started running a year ago and this has made the world of difference. – roofusFound a route planner on the London Marathon site. It allows you to save your routes and also access other routes

, but it does allow your brain to switch off. You can generally buy it from a good herbalist or online. – Nick KirbyDo you eat before or after your run? When I trained for the London Marathon I used to run at about the same time each evening, and then would have

"Stop fighting it!"That's what a fellow runner yelled at me years ago in the middle of a very windy out-and-back marathon. "Don't fight the wind," he said. "Wait until the turnaround, then pick up the pace when the wind is at your back."The sheer

, and if you’ve been running for a few weeks, it’s a distance that you’ll be comfortable with. (Need a training schedule?)First-timers do tackle longer distances, of course – five-milers, 10Ks, 10-milers, half-marathons and even marathons – but we wouldn

GETTY IMAGESFern Oliner had been a runner for more than 25 years when she experienced a breakthrough in her performance during a half-marathon."For the very first time, I felt like a true runner,' she recalls. "There I was, running uphill, passing

at Pikes, I’d entered on a whim, overconfident and undertrained, and I’d lumbered to the finish line, 13.3 miles and 7,815 feet above the start, thoroughly spanked. The next year, I'd come prepared to expect a finish time akin to a road marathon. I'd upped

devils are sitting on your shoulder around about mile 20 in the marathon, you have had plenty of practice with their injury cousins in denying them any satisfaction. 3. Dream. The first three years coming back from not walking I spent a lot of time