Day 107: The Shift to Trust
Two weeks. That’s all that stands between me and the start line of the 2025 London Marathon. My training plan has now turned a corner—gone are the drawn-out endurance runs where time stretches like cheap elastic. In their place? Base level runs: shorter, steady, and kinder to the joints, muscles, and any other parts of me that regularly file complaints. It’s a bit of a sore point (quite literally) that I lost two weeks of training. First, illness. Then, a back injury that felt like it had ambitions of its own. Because of this, the classic 20-mile training run—the holy grail for many marathoners—remained firmly in the realm of dreams and myths, like unicorns or affordable petrol. But, as with all things marathon-related, there’s no absolute truth. Some plans demand a 20-miler, others call it unnecessary. I’ve spoken to runners of all stripes—marathoners, ultrarunners, strange mystical ironfolk—each with their own wisdom. And almost all of them agree on one thing: speed work and interv...