London baby!! So based on your current fitness my pace predictor is spitting out a marathon time of 3:23, so perhaps we can look to improve on that time from last year slightly but without pushing too hard in training.

I think anything from 3:20-3:25 would be a fantastic result.

I’ve put together a plan which takes us right up to London. There’s a week off in the middle to try avoid any cumulative fatigue.

It also introduces the periodisation approach to training, so you’re not pushing your limit all the time. The idea being for the first 9 weeks we continue on a similar trajectory to what you have been training at.

Then as we move into the new year we put in 8 hard weeks of training, upping to a higher level. But then we ease back again, as early as 8 weeks out from London. Why so early? Well I thought it might be nice to do a few extra races in the build up.

There are plenty of half marathons to choice from and it would be nice to take advantage of your fitness levels. It also means rather than make London the sole focus, you have those other opportunities to clock a new PB.

The race I always recommend is Paddock Wood, simply because the field is so deep and you’ll have lots of strong runners around you. The final decision as to which races you go for will always be yours, but putting a few half marathons in there also give a bit of variety to the training.

So when we reach that race period the training eases back again, so the legs will hopefully feel stronger and you should be fresh to run some really good times.

It should add to your sharpness as well and any race day practice is good. Obviously Sundays might be tricky for you some weeks if you do have the kids and that’s fine. It doesn’t matter too much when you do the sessions, I’ve just scheduled them in for Sunday on the plan.

If there are any additional runs you would like to do, let me know. I’ve scheduled in the XC as well, apart from the last one, as that really is a weekend we want to be smashing out a big marathon session in truth. We could potentially tweak it if need be, but ideally that would be the better option on that day given London is the priority.

But I’m excited. You’re running great right now and I see now reason why those times can’t continue to improve with another big training plan.

Keep up the great work Jamie.