Berlin Marathon, 26th of Sep: Preparations

Thuringen Ultra 2010

Well, this is it. I have arrived at one of this years main targets. During the year I have had PB's at all new marathons I've participated in. A total of 6 marathons of which 4 is on the road and two on trails.
The first marathon was in Rome 21th of March with a finish time of 4h 18m 50s-an improvement from last years PB of 4h 31m 10s(Oslo Marathon).
Since then I've raced in Ålesund 8th of May( 3h 52m 9s), in Copenhagen 23th of May(3h 49m 14s) and in Stavanger 28th of Aug(3h 46m 21s). In addition two marathons on trails, but those are not comparable to street-races.
Being able to improve every time is good but very challenging when the next race is due-like now. Anyhow, I've made good preparations when it comes to training, tapering and other necessities.
Now it's time to establish a race-strategy. First of all I need to decide on the pace. Average pace in Stavanger was 5:22. Clearly my aim is to do better than that. I need to forget about time and consentrate on my tasks which is: keep a steady pace, supply with nutrition as planned and enter my zen-zone.
My target pace in this race is going to be 5 min/km. That will  result in a finish time of 3h 31m. With an extra effort the last 2km I'll reach the finish line within 3h 30m. Split times(5km) trhoughout the race will be 25m.
Strategy:
-Warm-up: I'm doing 10 min light run before start combined with 5 min stretching.
-Nutrition: I'm using a drinking belt with 8 bottles of energy-drink of 0,15 l each. I'm not stopping at any supply stations at all. No solid food before the race on race day.
-Shoes: Saucony Kinvara
-Clothing: Singlet, short thights-both from GORE
-Mental part: It's important to endure a lot of pain in order to obtain my targeted pace. In order to do that I'm consentrating on keeping the pace at all times, focusing on fullfilling the km I'm in, embracing and examing any pain that occurs and staying in my zen-zone at all times-one step at the time up till ten and again throughout all the race. In addition I'm visualising my performance in advance-running through every step of the course in advance in order to programme myself mentally to perform.

Finally, most important of all, have a good run.