Completed weeks 1–8 of my DIY 16-week marathon training plan. Some statistics (see the report for the first four weeks here):

• Ran 42.8 + 45.7 + 51.0 + 36.2 = 175.7 miles in the last 4 weeks (324.2 miles total over the 8 weeks)
• In 29 hours 7 minutes (54 hours 26 minutes total)
• Bumped up the long run up to 17 miles (which took me slightly north 2 hours 50 minutes)
• Number of non-easy miles for the last 4 weeks is 22: 12 threshold and 10 marathon pace (29.4 miles total over 8 weeks)
• Easy miles are really easy: as one can calculate, the overall average pace of all these runs is above 10 minutes / mile (which is 2 minutes slower than the marathon pace and more than 2:30 slower than the threshold pace); that’s exactly how it should be
• Overall, done 50% time-wise and 47.2% distance-wise

Further thoughts:

• Cumulative fatigue is real! I reached the point when all my runs are done on partially exhausted legs. Even though so far I managed to complete all the workouts and so far not to get injured (knock on the wood), it’s getting a bit mentally exhausting
• I really don’t have any physical or mental resource to do any VO2Max intervals. Maybe I’ll throw a session or two in the remaining weeks, but such workouts are very energy draining for me and less beneficial than threshold workouts for marathons, so we’ll see
• During the last 4 weeks, I practiced to take gels during the long runs. Unsurprisingly, it’s much harder to get those down when the pace is faster, but so far no particularly adverse reactions
• Finally, the race organizers published the route, and it’s legit scary due to its hilliness