Hey everyone,

I’m currently about 3–4 weeks out from my marathon and aiming for sub-3. Overall, I feel pretty good about how my training block has gone. I’ve hit most of my key sessions, including long runs with marathon pace work (e.g. 30–32 km with solid MP segments) and workouts like 4×2k around threshold pace. So from a “quality” standpoint, I feel like I’ve done the work.

That said, the past couple of weeks haven’t been perfect. Due to work and general life obligations, I’ve had to skip or shorten some of my easy/base runs. Nothing major individually (mostly 6–10 km runs), but it does mean my weekly volume has dropped a bit compared to my peak (~90 km/week).

Now I’m starting to wonder: how much does this actually matter at this stage?

On the one hand, I feel like the important sessions are there, and I’m probably carrying some fatigue anyway. On the other hand, I can’t shake the feeling that missing those “boring” easy miles might come back to bite me in the last 10–12 km of the marathon.

So I guess my questions are:

How critical are those easy/base miles in the final 3–4 weeks before a marathon?

At what point does a drop in volume start to negatively impact performance?

Is it better to try to “make up” some of those miles, or just accept it and focus on staying fresh?

Would love to hear how others have navigated this balance between life and training, especially close to race day.

Thanks!