SO, after months of training, sleepless nights and the odd injury... it's all over.

The Virgin London Marathon has been and gone and the whole day went by in a blur of bobbing heads and bibs.

THIS is the part of the training programme I have been looking forward to the most - carb loading.

This week I've been mostly eating pasta, pasta and... yep, more pasta!

Oh, and jacket potatoes, bread, rice - anything stodgy, really.

SO my kit is washed and ironed, I've collected my train tickets and my bag is packed. I'm ready, if not exactly raring, to go.

As I type this, there are just nine more sleeps until the Virgin London Marathon and the conflicting butterflies of excitement and apprehension have begun to flutter.

I feel like a child about to start primary school - especially after packing a packet of jelly babies and stitching my name to my running top!

WITH a little over two weeks left before the Virgin London Marathon, the training is over and it's now time to make sure I'm mentally prepared for the challenge.

With that in mind, I've put together a check-list and some top-tips which I thought might help others who are planning to take part in the marathon, or another long-distance run later in the year.

Most of these will also apply to anyone who has started training for the Great North Run in September. Preparation is key after all...

MY running number arrived in the post the other day - so it's official, I really am doing the Virgin London Marathon next month.

I know this is something that should have sunk in by now, especially as I started my training in January, but I think I've been a little bit in denial.

But, seeing my number written down in plain black and white - 27408 - has made it all seem very real, very soon and very daunting.

AS with all major fundraising events, the Virgin London Marathon attracts its fair share of celebrities to the start line.

With just a handful of weeks left to the big day, I decided to see who I could potentially end up rubbing elbows with.

TO walk or not to walk... that is the question. But for me, there is only one very obvious answer.

When I started training for the Virgin London Marathon, I vowed that when it came to the big day I would run or jog for as long as my legs would allow.

This is still very much my intention, but with only a little over a month left to go I have to accept that I may be doing a fair share of walking too.

MOST of my training sessions have been positive ones so far (apart from the time when I fell on a patch of ice, but that's still a sore point I'm trying to forget).

No, most have been good. I've felt as though I've been making progress, pushing on for a little further each time and I've definitely noticed that my legs don't feel quite so heavy, quite as quickly, as they once did.

But then came the mother of all bad training sessions when everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

FOR the last few weeks, my mind has been focussed on the training rather than the other practical sides of the mammoth challenge ahead of me.

But with just eight weeks to go to the Virgin London Marathon, I thought it was about time I started to plan my trip to the capital.

UP to now I think it's fair to say I've been a little bit blase about my marathon training.

It's true that I have ventured out every weekend, come rain or shine, hail or wind, ice or snow - and all the other combinations Mother Nature has seemingly thrown at me.

However, despite my well-meant intentions, and I guess I'm not the only one training for something who occasionally feels the same, it's got to the critical stage where I have told myself "I really must try harder".