running and come back having missed training or 2) get over it and pick a 10K race somewhere with no time target and a no watch. Give it a couple of days and move on - you won't believe how quickly you forget bad races! – Pugheaven™ Any questions?Got a

4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12 | Week 13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16The best feeling in the world - two weeks post-race:Week 17 | Week 18

Q I started running last summer by running and walking a mile every three nights, and built this up to around 15 miles a week. I’ve now done three 10Ks, all in around 53 minutes, but in the last one I had trouble with some of the hills and had

© Getty Images If 26.2 miles just isn't enough, an ultra could be the race for you. Races longer than a marathon, ultras range from 30 miles to hundreds of miles and take place in hundreds of beautiful locations from Sussex to the Sahara

at the London Marathon (2:46, 2:43, 2:46, 2:43 [his quickest in last 20 years] and 2:47). Over the years, he estimates he's run about 2,000 races.Read the whole forum debateQ. Most marathon schedules are based on past performances but my opinion is that you

work through, or whether you should take a step back, and focus on another race.Roadblock: You're boredIf you look at that 20-miler on your schedule and feel like you can't drum up the will to get out of the door, you're not alone. It can happen any

-gel at the start, another between 10K and 10 miles, a third carbo-gel between Miles 13 and 15 (I find this one the most useful) and a final one at about Mile 20. I keep myself topped up with energy drink too. Of course, no fuel strategy can make up for poor pacing

their experience of pre-competition stress. He says, "The world's best athletes set lots of different goals – if you go into a race with 15 goals, then you're sure to achieve at least some of them.' Set a variety of goals to make sure you come away happy. You could

winner, of the Vitruvian Half-Ironman and the 2005 London Duathlon"I like to have everything else ready and organised so all I have to do for the last hour before the race is get my body ready. I do a 15-minute jog to warm up then five sets of strides

of the participants running a 62-mile race consumed 14,000 millilitres of liquid; another who ran only 26 miles, drank only 280 millilitres. The latter runner, not surprisingly, showed the most loss of vascular fluid, resulting in thickened blood plasma and impaired