I love that photo of you three all so happy with the angry sea in the background with the Pier. It’s great! It makes me happy. Thank you.

This plan. I’m excited. What an event to be part of. It’s going to be epic. And hopefully it will then mean your fitness levels will be really good for May with other races like Pier to Pier and the 5 Miler, now possible.

The speed work. I definitely think we need to keep that. You might ask why, but we need to keep those fast twitch muscle fibres ready for when they are needed late on in long runs, and speed work does that.

There will always be 1 easy midweek run now. I think getting some hills in and some trails to these is a good idea. They might not be truly easy then, but it’s good practice to strengthen the right muscles.

And also, the occasional hilly walk would be help. I won’t put it in the plan, but 60 mins around the Country Park, getting used to walking uphill at a fairly decent clip will help you for the race. It’s why my Beachy Head was so bad because my walking game is abysmal and when I was forced to walk I was being overtaken by loads of people. So it does help.

The S&C we keep, having strong legs is so important to ensure you can last the distance on the long runs.

Speaking of which, they are the key. Once every 2-3 weeks we’ll smash out a long run, slowly building to 4 hours 🤯. But these are more about “Time on Feet” and the pace isn’t an issue.

I’ve had a quick look at Stacey Hayler’s plan as she’s slowly building for some Ultra’s later in 2026. I think a few of your 3 hour runs tie in with long runs for her (not exactly 3 hours but close). The benefit being she likes the trails so possibly someone I could pair you up with, and I don’t think her pace is an issue for you.

We’ve only 4 runs of 3 hours+, anymore and it just leads to potential fatigue and injury. Even if you cover a half marathon in those 3 hour runs they are still great training. It’s the cumulative effect of the whole 19 weeks that gets you ready for race day, not how long your biggest run is.

I’ve also put 5 back to back runs in. These have worked brilliant for the ultra runners I’ve trained. The idea being you’ll do 2 hours on a Saturday morning on tired legs. If you can combine that with parkrun then it replicates race day perfectly. Because you’ll always be aiming for that 5k when you join the masses, and that’s how the race will pan out with the final 6km part of the main Brighton Marathon.

One other thought that crossed my mind, which could be possible, is to do your longest run as part of a race. Eastbourne Half falls on the same day as your 4 hour run, so 90 mins before hand and then 150 mins during the race could be an option 🤔. They’ve changed the route this year so it’s flatter and whilst that doesn’t replicate your event, it might be an opportunity to get close to 20 miles in, which if you do all your long runs on the trails, the distance will be much lower. Something to think about and no need to enter until nearer the time.

In terms of the data, if we remove the trip from the last plan, your average training pts per week has risen from 106 to 115 and the average number of runs from 3.0 – 3.05. So I’ve been sensible but also made sure it’s a progressive plan. As I say, if you include a hike in their too, which we could add to the plan if it proves beneficial, that would bolster the training by another 5-10pts per week.

That’s it though, so much to be excited about and hopefully in 20 weeks time you’ll be part of the marathon club, which is awesome.