Doubt

Doubt is a repugnant, sneaky little thing. It's like the monster lurking in your childhood cupboard - he's not always there, but the more you think about him the stronger and more threatening he gets until you have no choice but to go and sleep in the big, safe bed with your mum and dad.

Guess who's getting nervous about a little race coming up?

The doubts and the worries are creeping in, made worse by me reading things online, such as a thread on Coolrunning in which someone said there's no point in training at anything slower than race pace.

I go from being pleased that I am making progress in my interval training to thinking,' Great, so you can run intervals faster now - go and do a 42.2k interval and tell me how you feel.'

I never try to hide the fact that I get incredibly nervous before a race - any race. Some people say you should put on a confident front so you don't give competitors the advantage but in my mind I'm my biggest competitor - and I already know I'm freaking out. In the marathon I'm racing myself and the clock - I want a PB and if I get it I don't care if I've finished 10th or 1010th.

Negative thoughts are never useful and I'm trying to banish them. The truth is:

• I have trained for this race. 
• I have trained better than ever before for this race. 
• Granted, I have not had a good year for marathon racing but I ran a PB for a half marathon a few weeks ago. 
• Even if it all goes to shit I have a full day in Melbourne after the race where I can shop until I feel better. It may take a number of credit cards to achieve this.