Sub 3!! I’m writing this less than 30 minutes after Kieran Brooks clocked 2:57 at Stockholm, which is a nice confidence boost for me as a coach. 11 minute marathon PB for him, and in warm conditions.

The long run does become the key run in this new plan, although you don’t necessarily have to do it on a Sunday.

The biggest long run sessions you do are a 3 hour run in there, but perhaps best to hit the trails on that to slow the pace down a touch, so I wouldn’t expect anymore than 22-23 miles.

Then the biggest marathon session is 18 miles at goal pace. This is something new I’ve added after recently listening to a successful marathon coach who gets his runners to do this 5 weeks out before the race.

It might seem a lot, but then you did the Pier to Pier (16 miles) and quite a bit quicker than marathon pace back in February and I feel you’re running a little better right now. So in theory that shouldn’t present us with too many problems.

The training load is actually quite low for a marathon block, but it’s 50 more than the last plan and that knee did cause a few problems, so I’m reluctant to add anymore right now.

I think the gap between where you are at this moment in time and where you need to be on race day to achieve that target is very small. I just feel it’s more a case of just adapting the training to get used to marathon pace rather than making any fitness gains as such.

The one thing missing is parkruns, so if there is a week you want to run on the Saturday just let me know and I can work it into the plan, even if it means moving the long run.

But I’m confident if we just keep the training consistent, don’t do anything silly, then the sub 3 is definitely achievable.

If I’m honest the one thing really bothering me is the amount of races in the build up and the risk you do all the hard work in training and just tire yourself out by racing too much. If it were me I would ditch the Rye to Hastings or just pace someone.

Unless you had a genuine chance of winning that race, I don’t think it’s worth risking your sub 3 goal for that.

Thanks again for your continued support. I’m so excited for the Chester trip and can’t wait. Hopefully we both get in a decent block of training and can arrive there in great shape.