Training for the London Marathon in Just 10 Weeks

If you follow me on Instagram, you may already know that I’m training for the London Marathon 2022. I had a somewhat ‘last-minute’ offer of a place from the sponsors Flora and decided I was doing just enough running to seriously consider it.

First off, I should say that if you’re training for a marathon, get yourself a good marathon training plan. And try not to leave it until the last minute.

10 weeks out from the race (which is when the offer came) is about as last-minute as you can really leave it to consider running 26.2 miles. Funnily enough, I’d written a piece for Women’s Running a while ago on whether you can train for a marathon in 10 weeks. Spooky.

I wanted to run a marathon the year I turned 40 (this year). But I had to pull out of Manchester Marathon back in April. So when the chance to run London Marathon came, it felt like the universe was giving me a kick up the bum to make good on my goal.

How I’m training for London Marathon

10 weeks out from the race I’d been running regularly 3 times per week for the past few months. I was doing just under 20 miles per week total with a longest run of 7 miles on a Saturday. This was in the form of a ‘parkrun sandwich’. I’d run 2 miles to parkrun, run parkrun and then jog home.

The week I got the offer, I ran 10 miles to see how that went. So with 10 weeks to go I had run a longest distance of 10 miles. This is similar to where a first-time marathoner might be in their training.

Had I been doing any less than this, I wouldn’t have agreed to run London in 10 weeks. I wouldn’t have been able to build up my mileage enough at a sensible rate to do myself or the race justice.

Comparing training with Manchester

Back in the spring I was training for Manchester Marathon and my long run got up to 17 miles. But I was also in the final stages of buying a house. I wasn’t sleeping properly or eating properly and was in a state of high anxiety. The physical effects of this are so clear to me now in comparison.

The long runs were happening, but my midweek mileage suffered. When we finally moved house, we moved in to find we had problems with the drains that took a week to sort out – I missed a local 20 mile race and (without being able to shower) running was disrupted. For me, withdrawing from Manchester was the sensible thing to do.

Even though I only had 10 weeks’ notice for London, I’ve done more miles, more steadily and consistently than I had at this point for Manchester. This week I ran 8 miles before breakfast on a Thursday morning and last week my long run was 16 miles.

And not just that, but I feel far better – recovery is better and I’m not hobbling around after a long run.

How I got my London Marathon place

My London Marathon spot was given to me by Flora as part of its Get Towns Active campaign, which encourage people across the UK and Ireland to take the next steps towards a more active lifestyle – it doesn’t have to be a marathon.

Marathon training always forces me to find pockets of time I can use to train and that’s a benefit that lasts long after I’ve crossed the finish line in a race.

I’m incredibly grateful. Although I’ve run London twice before, doing it this year as a 40-year-old will be special. The past two times I qualified for a Good For Age place.

What’s my goal this year?

I have a rough idea of a couple of things I’d like to achieve at London Marathon this year. My C goal is to not have it be my slowest marathon yet and I think that means running faster than I did at Snowdonia Marathon where we scraped in just under 5 hours.

My first ever marathon in 2010 was Brighton and I finished in 4:31, so to run faster as a 40-year-old than I did at 28 would be great. But I’m going to see how my last long runs go before committing any goals to paper.