The last few weeks before a marathon are the most critical. It's so close to the event that you hardly have any time to get back on track if anything goes wrong. Which is why it's such a big blow if you get a simple common cold during this period.
You see, the final weeks of preparation are very definitely structured. At minus 3 weeks there's the biggest long run before the marathon. Any earlier would be too early, and the benefits would start to wear off by marathon day. Any later would be too close, and there wouldn't be enough time left to rest properly. So, there's hardly any chance of flexibility - 3 weeks before the marathon I have to do my longest run, 3h15m, period. This is followed by the tapering phase, a gradual decrease in training leading to the marathon. In the last few days before the marathon there's hardly any training at all.
This is all well and good, IF you don't fall prey to a silly ailment such as the common cold. As I said, since we're so close to the event there's no time left to allow for easing back into the routine. If you can't run at minus three weeks, then you'll have to do away with the longest long run, and the longest training run would be a shorter run, say 3hr, FOUR weeks before the event. So it's probably goodbye to any excellent performance in the marathon.
I've been lucky. I got my cold on the day exactly following my longest run. It was the best possible time to have a cold during the month preceding a marathon. One week without training, but enough time left to recover normal muscular fitness. Except that at the end of the one week I couldn't afford to remain sitting down any longer, and with the symptoms almost over I resumed on Sunday with a short run, followed by my standard easy 10k, a day off to allow the inevitable muscle soreness to go away, and today a midweek long run - duration exactly midway between what I was supposed to have done last Sunday (2h30) and what I would have done next Sunday (1h30) if things had gone according to schedule. So today I ran for 2 hours.
Now I'm walking a very fine balance between staying fit - running fit - and staying healthy, i.e. a full recovery from the cold. Not enough training, and the marathon becomes a very difficult enterprise. I got cramps today because of the one week layoff, so I still need to work to get my leg muscles used to the activity of running for a long distance. Too much training, and I get sick again, and the symptoms are taking a long time to go away...
I'm confident it will be alright on the day. From now on it's one and a half weeks of pampering and easy 10k's. I just have to take it easy and hope for the best.
