running over 400-1000m stretches, but your long runs should be really slow. The crucial question is how long you can train hard without taking a rest. A lot of our top marathon runners cover 100 miles a week for most of the year, but the elite cannot

, swimming one hour a week, and spending 30-40 minutes per week on gym work.For the running, try to do one session a week of speedwork, with things like 10 x 1 minute fast, two minutes slow (or 12 x 200m fast, 200m jog if you’re on the track). This should

; then sail round the coast to invade the city from the south, where they hoped the gates would be opened to them by traitors within. The Athenians could only put up an army of 10,000 men, with no cavalry and no ships. Their allies from the tiny city state

move onto mile 11.Mile 11 That’s more like it – at 10.5 miles you pass within just 250m of the Mayflower pub.Mile 12 There’s a slight rise along Jamaica Road, but this is as close as the FLM comes to a climb.Mile 13 Enjoy one of the best bits

Ready, steady… goStart slow. You will feel lousy before the marathon because of tapering, then when you start you’ll suddenly feel wonderful. Your body hasn't really changed so don’t revise your target pace because you feel good at mile five, or 10 or 15. You

in 3:30, for example, at a rate of 180 steps a minute, during the entire race you will take 37,800 steps. Stronger leg muscles allow you to spend less time on the ground with each foot-strike and increase your stride length.A reduction of just 0.02 of a

two or three intervals with five-minute recoveries), or do a continuous 25-minute tempo run at a pace that’s 12-15 seconds per mile slower than your usual 10K race pace. TaperIt’s tempting to think that extra time spent training in the last weeks

and found I couldn’t handle any more than 10 minutes of cardiovascular exercise! Is this normal? A When you wrote, your marathon was still less than four weeks behind you. At this point it is quite normal to still be feeling the after-effects, especially

helps you reduce your time on the ground per footstrike by just 0.02 of a second, an almost infinitesimal change, your marathon time will be 12:36 faster (0.02 x 37,800 strides). And if the same improvement in leg-muscle power helps to improve your

to set PBs at 10K, 10 miles and half marathons. – Johnny JConsensus advice is that for a first marathon you'll need up to a month to fully recover. However, as others have said, if you feel OK and don't do anything silly, you can pick up running again