2 weeks to London

With exactly 2 weeks to go I'm fully into the taper in the run up to this year's London Marathon, taking place on 22nd April. I've slipped off plan on a few occasions, but have managed to make it this far without picking up any injuries and feel I've struck a happy balance between training, social, work and family life. The two keys being the plan I've followed and a very supportive wife.

A summary of my training, from the 1st January 2012 to date, is as follows:

Activity	Count	Distance (miles)	Time (h:m:s)	Avg Speed (mph)	Avg Duration
Running	44	375	48:40:09	7.7	1:06:22
Swimming	22	9.2	6:10:00	1.3	0:16:49
Cycling (mostly commuting)	10	189	14:54:12	13.7	1:29:25
Misc (Ski/Hike)	7	-	15:30:00	-	2:12:51

Discounting skiing, hiking and 75% of my cycling, as generally cycling was while commuting to work, the total time spent specifically on training amounts to:

66 hours over the past 14 weeks, or an average of 4h45m per week

Working this out confirms how I've managed not to allow marathon training to impact on my life too heavily, which is in stark contrast to my first marathon. Of course, you can always look back afterwards and think what if, but my ethos has been more of one to make provision for natural turbulence along the course of my training and not allowing the occasional knock to affect my outlook.

Yes, I dare say if I put my life on hold and dedicated it to train like an athlete, I might be able to break the magical 3 hour barrier, but what would happen to the rest of my life in the process? I enjoy my running, I enjoy the freedom it affords, the space to think, or not think, and the needed push it gives to keep the rest of your life in a healthy balance. I'm going to keep things as they are and won't be hanging up my running shoes any time soon, marathon PB or no PB in two weeks' time!