DNF'd my first marathon
I've been on and off running for just shy of two years, worked my way from a 2:30 debut half to a 1:45 half over that time and fell in love with running. I signed up for my first marathon aiming for a 4:15 time and followed an 18 week training plan
The training went great, felt sore in my legs some days but nothing you wouldn't expect, averaged around 40mpw which I built up over the 18 weeks. Missed some interval sessions but none of my long runs. Longest run I did was about 19 miles which worked out to be a 3hr long run.
Tapered for 2 weeks slowly lowering my volume, took the day before easy and focused on carb heavy foods 48 hours prior. I've had race mornings where i've felt really rough but that morning didn't feel like one of those days, I felt very rested and fresh and good to go out and have a fun time
The first 5 miles flew past and I was really happy with everything, fueling was OK, my pace was slightly below MP which I was fine with and my breathing was smooth, I felt like I was back doing my easy runs.
At mile 6 is when I first felt some trouble, my right achiles started to get a sharp pain on each step, this was a shooting pain all the way up to my calf and at first was quite mild and I hope it'd go away. Come mile 13 it was getting close to unbearable, my pace had dropped completely and I began walk/running. Mile 15 I could no longer run/jog on it and the pain was getting worse while just walking. I DNF'd just shy of mile 18 feeling absolutely devestated
Looking back DNF'ing was absolutely the right call, and in hindsight I should've quit sooner, but there's a huge amount of grief in spending just shy of 4 months training for one event to have it cataostrphically not go to plan. I've been trying to figure out why I never had any problems with my achilles (not even a niggle) throughout any of my long runs
I don't think the marathon distance has scared me though, I know in the future I will go for it again, but I feel I will always have some anxiety of something going wrong on race days in the future from this