"Why 26.2 Miles? Because 26.3 would be crazy!"
Its hard to believe its that time of the year again. All the evenings of what seemed like endless pounding of roads, the torturous hill sessions, the sickening sprints all leading to what will be a great race day.
Some of you will be marathon veterans, knowing each bump and hollow and some of you will be marathon virgins not knowing what you've just got yourself into. With only 10 days to go, we here at Run Republic have decided to offer a little race prep guide for the days leading up to Ireland's biggest race of the year.
Regardless what training you've done up to now, your last long run should be done and dusted and you should be in the midst of tapering your run back to shorter runs. This is something I always found difficult as the temptation is to squeeze every last mile in before the big day. Truth be told, the work is done and pushing to hard at this stage in training will impact your time during the race.
By right, you should now be running roughly half what you were running last week and your legs should be feeling just a bit fresher. If you haven't started tapering yet, don't just stop running, ease back gradually over the next 10 days. Now is not the time to be doubting if the miles have been done.
The Dublin marathon is a great event and the crowds will be behind you all the way. If you are running on your own, be sure to get a tshirt and get your name printed on it. The reason you should do this now and wear it a few times is new clothes can cause chafing. When spectators see this, they will cheer you on and such small things will make a big difference on race day.
The main thing to do at this stage is to relax and let the excitement build. If you have any specific questions, comment below and we will help you as soon as we can.