This was the first time I’ve woken up early to have a meal before the marathon. The guide is to eat 3 hours before the gun, so I ate a fairly basic rice meal, and had bananas and honey sandwiches at 4am. Then I did a walk and went back to bed. I have to say that this worked out great. I was feeling a bit heavier than normal early in the race because usually my stomach is empty. But 2 hours later when the pressure was on I felt like I had more energy to get me to the finish line. Another good thing about getting up early is you can go for a walk and get everything moving. There’s nothing worse than showing up to race with a full lower intestine.