The wave of nausea that hit me was quite unexpected. It immediately brought back the latter stages of the marathon and it took me 4 gulps get the stuff down.

I’ve never enjoyed taking carbo gels. Firstly, the taste and sensation takes some getting used to. I’ve tried out quite a few different types of gel while training for the marathon, each with varying levels of viscosity. I simply can’t get used to the process of squeezing a sachet of runny, bitter-sweet goop down my throat without feeling the urge to regurgitate.

But if you are going to get through that dreaded wall, then you need to fuel yourself sufficiently to stop your body’s glycogen stores from depleting and turning to fat as an energy source. In 2010, Lucozade Sport will, for the first time, be providing carbo gels to London Marathon runners at miles 14 and 21 to help runners with that extra fuel they need to get through the final stages of the race. While I’m sure that this is a welcome introduction for a lot of you, I’ll be trying something different.

I’ll never forget the rush I felt at mile 22 of last year’s race when I grabbed a jelly baby from a helpful kid at the side of the road and wolfed it down. The effect was almost immediate. So, a few weeks ago I tried out some PowerBar Gel Blasts on my last long run to see how they’d fair against carbo gels. These gel blasts are like large Haribo sweets with a gooey filling.

They’re quite big and need a bit of chewing so consuming them can affect your breathing. I took one every half an hour, which meant I had to carry 7 with me. Unfortunately, the website recommends you take 1-3 every 10 minutes! Which, would have meant that I’d have to consume 18 of them on my run! I’d barely have time to breathe!

Last week Lucozade Sport sent through some sample sachets of their Jelly Beans and I tried them out on a 12.5 miler on the weekend. I have to say, the results were pretty spectacular. Admittedly, the distance wasn’t quite as long as the week before, but my split times were better than ever! I set a new PB.

I’d taken a sachet half an hour before the run and had another sachet while I was out. Once I’d washed them down, I felt a hell of a lot more sprightly. Rather than just being sweets, the jelly beans are packed full of carbohydrates and are a welcome alternative to the gels.

But again, they advise you to consume quite a lot to obtain the same amount of energy you’d receive from a gel sachet. Having no pockets in my shorts, I simply carried a sachet in my hand while running. So at one stage I was running with a water bottle under my arm, tipping the sachet into my right hand and consuming half the packet in one go to try and get it out of the way. With a mouth full of jelly beans, my breathing was obviously affected.

On race day I’ll empty a few packets of these into a pouch on my arm and consume them gradually over time. This, coupled with a bowl of pasta for the previous three nights running, should see me to the finish line. Just over a week to go now!

Let me know if you have any tips on how to get through the wall and how you’ll be carrying your fuel to cross the finish line.

If you fancy winning some of these jelly beans to run the marathon with then make sure you enter the competition to win a Lucozade Sport marathon race packs.

Although I’m ready and raring to go, a side of me is wishing I had longer. I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself after the marathon is over and done with and apparently I’m not alone with this feeling. There is actually a condition called post marathon depression, where a person, instead of feeling relief and a sense of achievement, feels empty and falls into a lull. I’m sure I’ll be feeling the former, plus I have a 10k race booked in after (in which I’m hoping to break the 50-minute mark).

Over the past few days all I’ve done is research the London Marathon in a bid to get a feel for what the experience is going to be like. I don’t want any surprises coming my way on Sunday. In doing so I stumbled across the London Marathon media pack, which contains a multitude of brilliant facts about the marathon – like the following:

• The most money raised for charity by a single marathon runner was £1,841,138
• This year over 150,000 people applied to run the marathon, around 50,000 normally get accepted and around 36,000 actually start
• The most common profession amongst this year’s runners is teaching/education
• 159 of the runners will be celebrating their birthday on race day
• 300 litres of blue paint will be used to paint the line on the course that represents the shortest distance
• 750,000 bottles of water will be distributed throughout the course
• The fastest time run in a Santa outfit is 3:12:27!

However, this is the most worrying fact…

• Number of urinal bays at the start = 400

Lets say that out of the 36,000 people that normally start, 20,000 odd are men (this year the number of men out-weigh the women at around 3-1). Lets also assume that every man will need the loo at least once during the build up to the start. That equates to 50 men per urinal! This is probably why the London Marathon magazine in the starters pack contains this picture…

I’ve always been one for toilet humour.