# running / London Marathon 2025: Week 14

13 Apr 2025

Goals for the week

• Trial some other gels at race pace, and take notes
• Optimise diet
• Another over-under session
• Another race rehearsal long run

Over Under Workout

Another Over Under this week. This was my favourite run of the week, as it was last week too.

The paces themselves don’t mean much, but I clocked into the paces pretty nicely and they started to feel natural.

6:26 - 6:44 - 6:23 - 6:39 - 6:24 - 6:30

I tried a new Springer gel, which have a fruity taste and crunchy texture. I liked it.

Long run & gel trial

Last week’s long run rehearsal was fairly disastrous. This week was a step up, but still not confidence-boosting good.

I took the train to Blackheath to trial the journey before the race. I had a heavy stomach from the start, before any gels. Given that, the gels went down better than I would have expected.

The first was a Maurten, at 35mins. It started to feel heavy but I got a water and that really helped.

At 1:05h I took a Huma chia gel, the first time I’ve tried it. That too went down okay, and then made me a little heavy, until a sip of water seemed to help a lot.

A third gel around 1:40h, another Springer, didn’t go down that well but I was okay.

I’ll be taking a break from gels now, until the race, for the next few weeks. Hopefully this will help desensitise.

I tried some pick-up miles towards race pace but feeling so heavy made that tricky, and I just didn’t have the pop or the focus.

I got 18 miles down without much celebration, or incident.

Fair to say neither the gels or my legs were encouraging today. Not sure how to feel.

Diet

Simply put, I’ve not been taking this seriously. I don’t know how much I can improve things on the day, but I have to try.

No messing around now.

Thoughts

How are we here? 14 weeks done and the beginning of the taper proper.

There is so much that is out of my control now. I know that I can get these legs through London regardless.

Now I must do all within my control to make that day as much fun as possible.

Break from the gels

2 weeks to go. Time to soak it all in.

Goals for next week

• Disciplined diet
• Race shoe trial
• Taper & rest