is mental, not physical. Long runs, as well as building your physical strength, will give you the mental endurance to stay on your feet for anything from 27 miles to the length of the UK. Once the going gets tough on race day, you'll need distractions. Start

GETTY IMAGES You've followed your training schedule to the letter, successfully dodged injury and illness in the run-up to the big day and all of a sudden you're lining up at the start. Get your head

allow a day of easy running for every mile you raced. (The race dates are correct at time of publishing, but you should check the Race Diary to see whether they've been confirmed yet for this year.) January If you’re not a member of a club, this is a

precisely once every four years - when it mattered. As Viren himself said, "Some do well in other races, some run fast times, but they cannot do well in the ultimate, the Olympics … The question is not why I run this way, but why so many cannot."Dr Marco