Possible to run decent marathon in 1.5 weeks?

Your easy runs are way too fast. A sub 2:40 marathon is approximately 6:06 pace. Your easy run is only 34 seconds slower. It sounds like you're burned out and racing three marathons in under two weeks is crazy in my opinion, especially if you are trying to PR. Run the marathon if you want, but plan on taking at least a few weeks off to let your body recover. There is a reason pros don't run marathons every week. I'd do runs no longer than a few miles until your marathon and make sure to get plenty of sleep.

I think he's saying that his third marathon EVER is coming up in 2 weeks, not that he's doing 3 x 26.2 in the space of two weeks.

In any case, this sounds like either overtraining (months and months without enough rest and recovery) or you've picked up a cold or some other disease. Can you get into your doctor for a quick checkup this week? Get a Covid test while you're at it, too. Assuming your heart/lungs/bloodwork checks out, you should be well into a taper at this point in any case. Take a few days off and try a steep taper with low mileage at easy pace from now until next week and see if your legs start feeling any better.

You're screwed.

Just kidding. Take the next week and just run 20-30 minutes/3-4 miles a day as slow as feels good. I promise you that you won't lose any fitness. I bet you that you'll start feeling better by next week. Actually, I bet you have just been running slower because of all the mileage. This is why you taper after all! Marathon training is hard, and it is perfectly natural to be tired before the taper. Wouldn't be surprised if you ran a huge pr since it sounds like you've been consistently training well and are prepared. I don't start to feel good during a marathon training cycle until a few days before the race. Has always worked well for me. Rest up. You definitely deserve it. And I think a big taper would work well in your case.

And worrying won't help at this point! Basically everyone gets stressed during the taper/doesn't feel good. Focus on enjoying the rest of your life outside of running until race day and know that you really did everything you could to prepare.

Seems like classic sort of burnout. Easy days are being run too fast, your body is taxed. I would suggest sleeping more and laying off the mileage for the time being. It is likely you won't lose too much fitness from taking it easy for a while.

Recovery is often an underrated part of an amateur athlete's training. It is important that you rest and take your recovery days very easy. It is easy to think the recovery days are too slow, but sometimes it is more important to rest/give your muscles a break than to run sub 7 easy pace.

Best of luck

Thanks for all the replies. If I run an easy 4 miles/day for the next 1.5 weeks, do you think I have a chance of recovering enough to run a decent marathon? I put so much work into this and really want to do well. Two sundays ago I did 22 miles at 6:40 pace without too much struggle, so I don’t think I can be too screwed right? That was only 10 days ago. Will I lose a lot of fitness by only running 4 miles each day?

Okay, if you are aiming for a sub 2:40 marathon and ran 22 miles at 6:40 pace only ten days ago, I really don't think you've dug yourself too deep of a whole. If you were truly overtrained, I don't think that would have been possible. I think you're probably tired from that effort, especially since it came after many weeks of high mileage. That is a big workout depending on how you ran it, and it was only ten days ago. Those can take awhile to recover from. So, I still don't think you're that overtrained, but I do think that you need a major taper.

And sorry for any grammatical or spelling errors. I am using Siri

It's hard to know exactly what's wrong if anything but don't over-taper. It's normal to feel really bad while tapering and then feel great on race day. That doesn't mean your race will go well, but don't do anything drastic like run 4 miles/day, that is unnecessary only screw with your head even more.

Thank you for the reply. I’ve heard people say they feel awful during the taper portion of marathon training so I might just be overthinking it. I just did 4 miles Monday and Tuesday, but I’ll add some distance today and see how I feel from there.