Quote Originally Posted by TheHeathens View Post
I would argue that you should even be doing a marathon in training. I remember seeing on Andi Jones's facebook that he did a 2:32 marathon in training six weeks before his back to back runs in London (2:18) and Manchester (2:26 in horrendous weather) back in 2012.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/152673384

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/154949662

Pretty impressive stuff!
I think in Andi's case his mileage is high all year round, so 26 miles is fairly 'normal'. For a lot of people their weekly mileage isn't as high, so you risk race distance training runs having a negative impact. It's a fine line though.