I have 4 days to register for the London Marathon and the form has not arrived. I wonder what my chances are! I have taken a charity place for Trianing for life and hopefully going to be raising a lot of cash for them! What experiences has anyone else had with fund rasing and the Marathon?

Also I only started training Last week My longest distance so far this year is 4.5 miles in 40 mins. It sucks I know but I had to start back into running somewhere. Has anyone got a marathon success story that will comfort me and my lack of ability?!!!

Daniel

Im doing this and am slow, old and a bit scared.  But my son has just got a place and only just started training. Given we'll be strolling around in hopefully 5 and a half to 6 hours Im hoping he'll be ok. Im following Hal Higdon's slowest plan which is only this week up to 3, 5, 3 and 7 mile runs and up to 10 longest so far. Check it on Google.

All the best

Hi Daniel - I went from coach potato to marathon runner within a year and half however if your doing ten min miles already then your starting position is better than mine! I also had a charity place and stressed a lot about getting the cash in. I was lucky and my company matched what I raised through family and friends so I managed to raise more than the target. Contact businesses (I managed to get sponsered by Bravissimo - a lingerie company - it really is a case of if you don't ask you don't get!) other fundraising tips would be to do pub quizzes, car boot sales etc although these are quite time consuming.

I'm running London again this year and I'm behind in my training due to snow and then the flu - just don't panic, you've got plenty of time to get your mileage up. Do try and book a half marathon and if you can a 20 mile race about a month before the marathon. Try and find people in your local area to run with even if they can only run 5 miles with you, they will keep you going. Check out the training plans on line but adapt them to what you know you can do - there's no point doing a plan for 5 runs a week if you know you can only do 3/4.

I was unlucky last year and was ill the weekend of the race, my target time was sub 5hrs but it turned into 5:32. I knew by mile 13 it was all about finishing. My top tips would be sort your fuelling strategy out on your long training runs, this will help stop "Hitting the Wall", do your long runs in the morning so your body is used it at that time. And lastly do everything in your power to stay healthy up the fruit and veg intake, to fend off colds (wish I had done this last year!). 

Good luck!!!