Reader Bob Plant has decided to have a crack at the marathon distance, and after doing some 30,000 metre preparation pieces he reckons it's well within his grasp. However, the only problem is I seem to hit acute hunger pains after about 25km, pains which take about 3 days to go away. The first time I did 30km was with no lunch or evening meal and with no drink throughout. The next time I tried using Isostar throughout the row. It was better but still the hunger pains. Next time I will have a decent lunch. Any ideas? I hope to have my first go at a full marathon in the next couple of weeks, then I fancy a true 24 hour row with only toilet breaks allowed. Have any other nutcases out there done this, if so tips welcome.My other problem is that in the Training Guide it talks of setting the Concept 2 a couple of settings higher than normal, how do I do that? I normally row with the damper setting at 10, anything lower and my times go down as I have to lug this 46 year old flabby frame backwards and forwards more often and run out of strength too quickly.Terry O'Neill: When you are sitting on the machine for two and a half hours it is quite normal to get hungry. The way to combat this is to load up on the carbohydrates before the long sessions. The problem is that the body can only store a limited amount of carbohydrates so to load up you have to trick the body. This is done by a process called carbohydrate wash out. The week before you do your marathon, cut right back on your carbohydrate intake. Then, in the 48 hours prior to the marathon, really load up on things like pasta, rice and potatoes. How this works is that during the four or five days of carbohydrate depletion, the brain thinks something is wrong and that it is not going to get any more. When it does get some, it stores it away just in case there may be another carbohydrate famine. This in turn will give you a little bit more time before you get the hunger pangs.With the fluids, there is an arrangement that triathletes use by which they can take fluid constantly without stopping. The liquid is carried in a pouch on the back with a feeder tube to the mouth. If you make a weak carbohydrate solution drink (5%), this will also help. If the solution is higher than 5%, which you would get in energy drinks, then you could become dehydrated. You can buy the carbohydrate powder you need to make up the drink at any good sports shop.Don't worry about the damper setting, if you are comfortable on 10 that's OK. The Training Guide suggests varying the settings to make the programmes more interesting but the same thing can be achieved by pulling harder and thereby increasing the load. Tel