Into single figures

Into single figures now with 9 days to go to the marathon. I've had the official e-mail from the organisers, I'm on the start list, and it's all becoming quite real! I'm just fighting off the last of a fairly aggressive cold that enforced additional tapering for a few days (i.e., not doing any training at all). In some ways, this was perfect timing as I hope I have enough days to get fully better, as long as I don't catch anything else; there aren't any long runs left to do, so I just need to survive a few relatively short jogs to keep the legs going.

I have been looking up what are reasonable running times for the marathon (e.g., http://www.runnersgoal.com/how-many-runners-can-run-a-marathon-in-under-4-hours/). It seems about 25-30% of people can run a marathon in under 4 hours, and about 1.5-2% can run one in under 3 hours. This means that if I could meet my target of 3:30 I would be around the top 15% mark, which would make me incredibly happy! However, I don't want to get too hung up on exact timings and need to be fluid to react to whatever happens on the day and not kill myself...I've seen the elevation profile for the event (http://connect.garmin.com/course/4695237) and it is up and down to say the least! Just finishing a marathon is a huge achievement that I would be very proud to accomplish.