From Last to First: How I Became a Marathon Champion

by Charlie Spedding

I had thirteen weeks between London and the Olympic Marathon, and a lot of people were saying this wasn’t long enough for anyone to prepare properly. I believed it was. I think people struggle to deal with this sort of timetable because they don’t give themselves enough time to recover fully from the first marathon, before training for the second one. I regarded a full recovery as my first priority, and I saw no point in training to the limit again until both my mind and body had recovered from London. I wasn’t at all worried about missing training, because I had been in such good condition at London, and all that fitness doesn’t completely disappear during a spell of easy running.