u/Nut_Flush

A few weeks ago, I posted here and got an interesting mix or responses, rightly so - peaking at 40-50km for 3 weeks before the taper is not really the best idea. I had gotten injured the year before and took most of that year off before returning to running earlier this year. All up, i had 350km when i made that post, and was on about 500 just before the marathon.

Here’s a quick recap of what went down yesterday.

Carb loaded 3 days in advanced but wasn’t counting accurately. I was eating as much pasta and bread as i could as well as drinking 2 gatorades a day, with sweets in between. I also avoided meat or fried things.

On the day of, I woke up after sleeping for 2 hours due to nerves and having to fly in the day before. I drank more carbs and ate a few pieces of toast before heading out.

I started the race pretty mellow at around 6:00/km pace, keeping in mind some of the comments I had read around being even more conservative. I had figured that I would rather slow down and stop than to finish the race not knowing if I had more. I crept the pace down to 5:50/km from the second km as my heart rate was well within z2. For reference, my easy runs are usually at 6:15/km pace.

At around the 21km, i still felt fresh but i was a little more cautious because this was the furthest i had run, so i kept my pace even though i felt a lot more energetic than i’d imagined. I think at around 30km is where I started feeling the first signs of being tired. It was getting warmer too, and my heart rate was no longer in z2. I remember hearing that this is where the real race started, but i still felt okay which gave me some confidence.

At around 36km is where I really started feeling moderately tired. I started going a little faster just to push it, knowing that there was only 6km left. At around 39km i got a pretty bad stitch which was probably caused by the 9 gels I had along with all the random water stops i had drank from. I also started feeling my left quad feeling really tight so i downed a cramp shot which helped a lot.

The last 2 km was quite hard, the stitch wouldn’t go away and i didn’t want to stop so I was just counting down the meters left til the finish line. I saw the final 1km sign and i just went hard out, last km at 5:00/km.

Honestly felt so happy crossing the line without having to walk any of the race. Finished 4:10 and not completely out of energy. Pace was even, no negative or positive splits.

I think for my next one, i’ll follow a proper training block and aim for something faster instead of half winging it. It would have been more enjoyable not having to second guess when that wall would be coming during the race.

First marathon, quite underprepared as I returned to running this Feb after a year off. I’ve raced in the VF4 for a HM and have done some long runs with the SB3’s but I can’t decide which shoe I should bring next week.

I’m 152lb and 6 foot and i’m looking just to finish without stopping. My logic tells me the Superblasts are probably the safer bet but looking online, it seems like race shoes can still shave off time.

Is the VF4 too aggressive for someone who’s going to do the marathon at a long run pace (6:00/km)? I won’t be racing it because i’ve never gone past 22km in any of my long runs.

30m, 150lb runner. I started running in 2024 and got injured after running way too much on top of playing sport - got a lingering ITBS which kept me from doing any running for 9 months until earlier this year. I was averaging 40km per week and ran about 1000km before I stopped. My projected time for a HM that I dnf'd (recurring injury) was around 1:45, it was probably at my peak fitness.

Fast forward to this year, I decided to sign up for a very flat marathon about 6 months ago without thinking too much about it. I ramped up training about 12-13 weeks ago and have been averaging 40km weeks for the past 5 weeks, capping out at around 50km for the last 3 weeks. I've been doing some strength training and i generally feel quite good.

Now that the marathon is around the corner, I have no idea how I'm going to pace myself. I've done multiple long runs at 21-22km but nothing more. My legs do tend to feel super drained towards the last few km's of these long runs, even though I'm doing them at my 'easy' pace which is about 6:15/km.

I did do a half marathon a month ago and got 2 hours on the dot but I do believe I would have gotten a better time if the weather wasn't humid and if my pace wasn't all over the place - i averaged 5:20/km for the first 10km before needing to run a hilly second half of the course.

Does anyone have similar experiences going into a marathon? I'm not sure what pace I should be going at and I'd ideally like to run the whole thing without stopping.