An Upcoming Marathon, An Unlikely Time Machine and a Random Memory of Stingray

So with 19 days to go till the Chester Marathon I'm going to start training. It's only just dawning on me that I may have left it too late.

My previous thought that all my triathlon training would give me such a strong endurance base that I could just push on, replace all swimming and cycling with running for a few weeks and hit somewhere near a full marathon now seems to be a ridiculous idea. In all my cleverness I thought I had 4 weeks to go till I checked a calender today and found it was less than 3. OK so 4 weeks might not have been long enough but it would have been better than 3. If only I had a time machine! O well... there's nothing like a challenge.

To make this challenge achievable I decided to plan my training. The only problem is I never stick to my plans. But this time I'm going to have to. All the swimming and cycling has gone and has been replaced with endless kilometres of running. The plan looks really hard but I reckon I can get through it. It culminates in ramping up my training till I reach my ultimate long run of 30km. Will this be far enough to get me round the 42.2km of a marathon? I've even managed to squeeze in some tapering in the final week and a rest day before the big event. The only problem is this rest day is one of only 3 in my plan. The total distance I've planned to train is 264.86km which is about the same as 164.5 miles. I got some directions from google, that's the same as running from Derby to Portsmouth, from Chester to Newcastle. Further than running from London to Macclesfield or Rotherham or even (if I could run on water) Brugge.

So now the doubt has set in. Have I left myself enough time to train? Will my body cope with the amount of running? Is 3 rest days enough? Who knows...? But, to misquote Stingray, anything could happen in the next half month.