I'm in need of some reassurance or guidance because at this point i'm so lost and scared for my first marathon. Training has been going well for me and I was on top of the world until 3 weeks ago with an 80mpw week and really good workouts all throughout my marathon cycle.
2 weeks out I reduced my mileage to 56 mpw and in the middle of that week I bought new shoes.
I think the new shoes was the biggest mistake I could have made because although I can run in them and whatnot, the arches are so high and it just bothers my foot (not to the point where I have to stop running but it's just noticeable).
I ran in them for a few days and then decided to use my old pair more recently but now my old pair doesn't feel that great anymore (feels like significantly less shoe).
On top of that it feels like i'm losing my fitness because of the stress of my half-assed attempt at breaking in my new shoe. Easy paces are 1.5 min/mile slower than normal and I wasn't able to do a proper sharpening workout this week because I felt like puking after a mile of Threshold pace.
I wish this was a troll post guys, but I need some hope here. I trained really hard for this first marathon (11 hrs/week on avg for 5 months) and my expectation was to break 3h30. I don't know at this point.