Since there hasn’t been much recently diving into running socks from the advanced community, I wanted to get a new post out seeing where everyone leans when it comes to quality socks.

Personally I struggle mentally to spend $15+ on a pair of socks and haven’t yet.

What sock brand and model do you run in? What level of cushion?
Are you a road or trail runner? Thoughts on toe socks?

Brands I see a lot on social media: -Feetures -Swiftwick -Balega -Rnnr -Stance -creepers -serasox

Race Information
Name: Rotterdam Marathon
Date: April 14, 2024
Distance: 42.195 kilometres
Location: Rotterdam, NL
Time: 3:20:XX

Goals
Goal Description Completed?
A Sub 3 No
B Sub 3:05 No
C Sub 3:10 No
D Sub 3:15 No
E PR Yes
F Survive Yes

Splits
Kilometer Pace
0-5 4:40
5-10 4:51
10-15 4:41
15-20 4:57
20-25 4:35
25-30 4:36
30-35 4:39
35-40 4:52
40-42. 4:25

Weather: 13 degrees Celsius (56 Fahrenheit), partly sunny.
Wind: West 3 Bft

Pollen count: idk but fucking high probably. Pollen suck 🖕

Hi all,
I wanted to share my report of the Rotterdam Marathon yesterday (dubbed ‘de Mooiste’ or ‘the most beautiful’). It is a pancake flat course, fit for PRs and WRs. It was a day of learning most of all, so I hope you can learn from my mistakes and experience. I’m in dire need of some motivating stories so any feedback or help is greatly appreciated, for which I want to thank you advance. Also ask me anything!
And yes, I know it’s a long read, TLDR at the bottom.

RIP to Kelvin Kiptum, who was meaning to break the sub-2 yesterday in Rotterdam.

Context
Being a long time (maybe over-)ambitious 27-yo M athlete in rowing, cycling and swimming, I got into running some 5+ years ago, but never trained this seriously for a marathon. Had a blast running New York ‘22 (3h50m) and Amsterdam ‘23 (3h20m) and have been using this subreddit for a while reading all kinds of useful tips and stories. For a while now, I have been eyeing a BQ, which I figured could well be possible, albeit exciting challenge.

Training
I’d finished Amsterdam in a surprising 3:20, in October ‘23, which felt very easy and enjoyable up until 37km. In preparation, I’d trained for several months using the Garmin daily suggested workouts (basically automated 80-20 training). Peak mileage was at maybe 55km per week back then. It made me hungry for a faster time.

Looking to crank up the training to inch closer to sub-3 hours, I took a short break in October. From november onward, I resumed training with the same Garmin program, switching to the Runna app from somewhere in February for some more variety and insight in workouts. Setting the target at sub 3 hours, it provided a plan with a wide variety of easy runs, intervals and long runs. Average mileage over 16 weeks was 50km. Peak week was 75km. I vowed to quit alcohol and sacrificed a lot of social occasions to mke everything work. Although the training was tough in the biggest weeks (coinciding with a new job also) it seemed to go well, feeling a little overreaching at times. Only major problem was a short flu spell and asthma issues that flared up because of the season 3 weeks ago. Based on 5k- (sub 19:00) and training paces, I faced an estimated finish time of 3:05-3:10.

Pre-race
I traveled to Rotterdam early to be able to prepare comfortably. Carb loading in days prior, breakfast, gels, marinading my lungs in salbutamol, everything went smoothly. Disaster struck when I noticed my stupid ass had been waiting at the wrong starting area all this time (the 10k distance area). I hurried to the ‘real’ start at the iconic Erasmusbridge but I arrived too late to join my startwave of 3:10 to 3:30-estimated finishers. In horror, I noticed a 4:30h pacer just before the start as I was in startwave 4. Fuck my life. Stressed out (and furious), I figured I’d have to slalom through an obstacle course but I’d be okay.

Race
First few kms were insanely crowded on the bridge and beyond as I swerved past people to be able to pick up some pace. Incredibly frustrated, I managed to average a decent pace though. After around 10k, the course entered a narrow bike path that seemed to be designed to torture me in Marathon hell. There was no way to pass ANY of the other runners and I had to accept pace of 5:20/km. I was 🤏 close to screaming aloud at some point. I tried some some hilarious manouvres through the grass, but that proved a dumb idea. After the course got wider later on, the slalom race continued with some result. Could keep the pace but felt like it was going to be tough final stretch, which was demotivating to say the least. Legs were feeling decent, until I reached 35km.

Everyone who has run this race, knows the Kralingse Plas, which is limbo on earth. There is almost no crowd and it tortures your legs with stretches of incremently elevating planes. It caused me to almost bonk and crash. The only reason this didn’t happen was the support of my brother, who was pacing me in the final 10k. I guess the amazing crowd in the city also deserves a lot of credit here. Absolutely pushing everything out in the final 2k, I crossed the finshline in 3:20. Sixteen seconds faster than I was in Amsterdam. And then nearly fainted, but that happens I guess 😂

Post-race
Even during the race I already felt some disappointment, knowing I would not reach the finish time I wanted. After the race, the disappointment was overwhelming and it took some effort not to burst into tears. Had to hide my disappointment for anyone asking about it, don’t really feel like telling anyone about the race (besides writing a report on reddit, haha). A net result of 16 sec faster after investing a metric fuckton of extra training and planning really hurts, not to mention sacrifices loved ones made as well. I also feel like laughing a bit at my own misery, I mean, this is such an insignificant problem in the grander scheme of things, right? On the other hand, it sucks, because I was trying very hard. The plan right know is to pick up the pieces and hopefully find some motivation after recovering from the post-race hangover. Re-evaluation of training plan seems necessary, since sub-3 has never seemed further from reach.

TLDR: Ran Rotterdam, with great weather and amazing crowd to hopefully go sub 3:10. F——d up, got into a slow start wave. PR by 16 seconds in a very hard race, having trained way more than ever. Very disappointed with the result, now lacking motivation.

Oh no! Anyway: would recommend Rotterdam for everyone, great course and atmosphere!

Thanks for reading, good luck on your goals!

Made with a new race report generator created by u/herumph.

Race Information

• Name: Jersey City Marathon
• Date: April 14, 2024
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Jersey City, NJ
• Website: https://www.jerseycitymarathon.com/Race/NJ/JerseyCity/TheJerseyCityMarathon
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11181125801
• Time: 3:03:48

Goals

Splits

Training

Training started ~3 weeks after my first half marathon in November. There I ran a 1:19 with minimal structured training, but around ~35-40mpw with higher splits of speed work alongside swimming/cycling for triathlon training. Unfortunately in December I started fighting what has turned out to be an incredibly persistent hip injury that has only allowed ~40-45mpw of running at best. I would love to say that there were strong key workouts here, but a considerable amount of my training has been lighter speed work and long aerobic on the bike to keep aerobic capacity up. I have run races intermittently including a 23:37 4 miler, 37:58 10k, and 2am 6.66mi OSR orienteering race (s/o Bread Route) in 6:07/mi. Main focus the last few weeks before race day was getting to the start line, so a single speed session per week, hot yoga, and shake out bike rides were all in the mix. In days prior carb loaded and did a shakeout with a group organized by a running influencer.

Pre-race

Woke up at 4am to eat waffles with peanut butter and honey, mix a bottle of Maurten 320 with electrolyte tabs, and get dressed. Met up with a group of people from run clubs in my area who were all doing the marathon and took an Uber to the location event organizers sent out which was a gas station ~1/2mi away from the start line. Pre-race took the normal bathroom stops and made way over to bag check to relax before starting. Jogged around with some strides and talked strategy with my friend who I planned on running with. Goal was 1:30-1:31 through the half and negative split into a sub-3 bid.

Race

The start was packed, made my way up to corral 3 (sub 7:00/mi) and found some space. Goal was to go out first 4mi around 7min/mi and descend comfortably through the half. The 3-4 out and back felt easy but I found myself side-stepping around holes/cracks in the road. Getting into Liberty State Park felt easy and we clipped (what felt like) easy miles through 10-11. At this point I had gone through my Maurten/electrolyte mix and had 3 gels down. My buddy's girlfriend had a bottle for him at 12 and my girlfriend had signs as well as an electrolyte bottle/gel for me and some friends cheering right before the half. We cruised through the half what must have been right around 1:30 and we both felt good. Another gel down. Miles 14, 15, and 16 felt smooth and I got another boost of energy from seeing my girlfriend&co again, but the first signs of fatigue were starting to creep in. Another gel. I felt extremely strong aerobically at 17 and 18, and started picking up the pace. I ended up sticking with someone else who was picking off groups with us and eventually left my friend after some back and forth on if dropping was ok.

The hill on Garfield at 19-20 was where things started to go sideways. At 19 I realized my pace was unsustainable and pulled off the gas a bit, taking down another gel and having the sick realization that this was my last gel. I was still running with the guy who had been picking off groups with us, but coming through the aid station on Garfield he took off and I was left in the dust. Turning onto Neptune I suspected my legs were struggling. Trying to get over the speed bumps on Neptune confirmed that suspicion. There was a struggle to fight off the pain on the slight downhill at 21 and through 23, but 24 and 25 were where the lack of real training was felt. Legs were cooked, energy was gone, and all I could do was grit my teeth. My friend ended up passing me at 24, giving a slight boost, but not enough to get the legs moving again. I stumbled through 26, seeing my girlfriend and some friends who gave me a boost with finish line in sight. I crossed with a 3:04low on the clock and knew I started back far enough from gun time to be under 3:04.

Post-race

After the race I met up with my girlfriend/friends and was lucky enough to have a ride straight to lunch back in my neighborhood. Ate a ton of food, slept for a few hours, and hung out at a bar with some friends before coming home and curling up for the night.

This is my first marathon and was run off of an incredibly dicey training block. Am I happy that I didn't get under 3 hours? No. Am I upset about this race given the circumstances? Absolutely not!

There is zero reason I should have been able to run that fast for that long. Blowing up after not having a long run over 15 miles in this block is exactly what I expected to happen. There is work to do on increasing mileage for the fall, but I think I'm on the right track if I can get back out there without major injury.

Next up is BK half where I am gunning to break 1:21 so I can hopefully run NYCM in 2025. After that is Eagleman 70.3 before a long ramp up to a what will hopefully be a massive PB at Wineglass in October.

Made with a new race report generator created by /u/herumph.

Race Information
Name: Carmel Marathon Weekend (5km)
Date: April 13, 2024
Distance: 3.1 miles
Location: Carmel, IN
Website: https://www.carmelmarathon.com/

Time: 20:18 chip

Goals Goal Description Completed?
A Sub 20 No
B PR 5k (beneath 20:43) Yes

Splits Mile Time
1 6:34
2 6:35
3 6:42

Training
In November I finished my second marathon, Monumental in Indy, and decided I really wanted to do a committed 5k and building block. I connected with a local runner who is a masters elite and in my club and enlisted him to coach me.

Mileage was roughly in the mid 30s-40s with 2-3 workouts a week and 5-7 runs total. Longest long run was about 17 miles which was apart of a cruel/fun 26.2km workout earlier in the build that was made to celebrate the Marathon trials (my club loves marathoning). A lot of interval work, a lot of hill work, and threshold work mixed into longer runs where I explored the discomfort and shifting aggressively.

My 5km PR existed from 2018 when I wasn't running regularly and was just younger and in aggressive shape. I have been wanting to modernize all my PRs and the last one left was my 5k. During the build I did successfully PR my mile time and my 10km so as the build went on I felt increasingly confident.

The biggest hurdle was my brain. I am a larger runner (6", 200lbs with muscle but a tummy) and while that got in my head I really just tried to trust the work I was doing and the paces I was hitting and the confidence people had in me. And visualizing. Lots of visualizing.

Race
I'm familiar with the Carmel course being a local to the area but also because my first Marathon was last year at Carmel.

I gave myself a 20 minute playlist and lined up towards the front. I initially was going to start 6:40 but as we began and I found folks to hang on with I just sort of let it go and let my legs get to work. I felt pretty strong early on. I focused in on process goals including finding folks I felt strong enough to pass and people I could smile at and relax my self. The first two KMs flew by easily and I was able to mostly hold onto the aggressive pace. I used the Garmin Pace Pro set to KMs to help me manage the times a bit easier.

Around KM 4 going well into KM 5 I began to feel nauseous. This happened with my last 5km race where after 1 mile in I dry heaved from nerves in reaction to how I felt despite how strong i was. The Carmel Marathon weekend course ends with an aggressive uphill with a turn and then downhill ending. About half way up the hill I had to full stop to cough up a whole bunch of nothing. I took one moment to talk calmly to myself and say "no 19 today, but let's PR" and immediately begin working up the hill to finish strong. I have no idea how much time I lost. It felt like eternity that stop. But maybe it wasn't.

I roared into the finish line and breathed fire for a minute before feeling really great.

Post-Race
The day quickly became busy with supporting the rest of my club including preparing to run in a friend to his first BQ time so I didn't have a ton of time to really sit and experience it. I am very proud. And I feel like I have sub 20 in me, and if not next weekend or the weekend after I am absolutely within short striking distance. I love this race: I love the fun competitive nature it summons in me and frankly the way I feel the day after.

Made with a new race report generator created by u/herumph.

Race Information

• Name: Jersey City Marathon
• Date: April 14, 2024
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Jersey City, NJ
• Time: 2:43:46

Goals

Splits

Training

I did Pfitz’s 18/70 plan. I did the plan once before for Chicago 2023, but I got back from a trip with 14 weeks left until the race, so I cut 4 of the weeks and dropped each week by 5 miles because at that point, the 18/70 was quite a jump in mileage (averaged in the mid 40s previously), so I felt dropping 5 miles each week may help injury prevention. I went into the race hoping to break 2:50, but was happy with a 2:52.

For context, marathon progression at this point: 3:21, 3:19 (bonked in my first two), 2:59, 3:09 (I was incredibly upset about this one lol), 2:56, 2:52.

So, I decided to see what benefits I could reap from a full 18/70 plan. I ended up missing approximately two weeks with different types of injury, but otherwise, I stuck to the mileage almost exact. The one thing I wasn’t consistent with was ending faster on medium long runs. I felt the medium long runs plus half marathon / VO2 workouts plus MP long runs was too much on my body. I did the “medium long runs” pretty slow.

This was my fourth straight marathon block (Fall 2022 - Spring 2024), as previously, I would take off in the winter and train for a fall marathon closer to the end of spring. It’s definitely a game changer.

I also invested in super shoes for the first time (Saucony Endorphin Pro 3s). I had been racing in clunky trainers up to this point and yeahhh… there’s a difference.

I only wore the Endorphin Pro 3s for one workout (18 miles with 14 @ MP) because I liked the idea of feeling especially fast on race days.

Pre-race

I did my usual. Wake up insanely early (3 AM for a 7 AM start), had 4 slices of toast with peanut butter, an electrolyte drink, and coffee to hopefully clear out. After sitting in traffic, I got to the start line with about 40 minutes, which was the perfect amount of time to go to the bathroom, get in a .5 mile warmup, and get mentally ready.

I’ll talk about mindset / goals here: I was training throughout the 18/70 plan going after 2:45, even though I knew it may not be realistic. And quite honestly, nothing in my training really indicated it was, aside from my big workout. I ran the 18 miles with 14 @ MP averaging about 6:10 for the MP miles and finishing in 5:50. The super shoes definitely made me feel comfortable at about 15 seconds faster than usual, so this workout was a big confidence booster. However, I didn’t hit most of the half marathon workouts, as Chicago wind certainly didn’t help. I was gunning for 6:00ish in half MP workouts (my PB was 6:06 and I felt I was in better shape) and more often than not, I wouldn’t last 6 miles at it.

I also have hit that big workout before and then had a subpar performance in the race. So I took it with a grain of salt.

I definitely felt mixed emotions about hitting 2:45. In my mind, 2:46-2:47 would still make me really happy and I’d be satisfied with a PB in general.

*Note: All splits are from Strava, as I missed several mile markers while doing manual lap. I found each mile was about 0-5 seconds slower than the time listed.

Race

Early miles: This is one of those races where it’s both half marathoners and marathoners, so I tried to be careful of going out too fast. In general, it was a wild experience for me because I ran the race one year ago (2:56:50) and went out in 7:00 flat for the first few miles and then gradually picked it up. I went through the half that time at 1:29:00 about. Now, I’m trying to go out the first mile in 6:20 - 6:25. nerves

I settle in and tell myself that I need to try to stay around 6:20 the whole first half (which would be a 1:23 half). As one would expect in a marathon, there is some crowding early on, but it’s certainly manageable and by Mile 3, packs started to develop. There is a really weird turnaround early on, so it’s a nice opportunity to see the size of the field and where the pacers are (they had a 2:50 pacer). I saw the 2:50 pacer and thought to myself “Should I have stuck with him the first half? Let’s hope I never see him again.”

For the first time in any race, I barely talked to anyone. I was pretty laser focused and just trying to be mindful of how my body is feeling. Somewhere around Miles 6-8 I noticed that I was basically being used to pace by a group of perhaps 5-10 people. I was a little frustrated because there was some wind (while not terrible) and I’m tall, so I was definitely taking the most of it. I was keeping us around 6-18-6:19 though, as pacing is something I know I’m pretty good at. Two nice guys noticed I was getting annoyed (I think) and said they would help out. This was funny because it kind of caused the group to separate. They sped up and we all spread out. I let people go off knowing 1.) some may be half marathoners and 2.) it’s a long race ahead.

Middle miles: Me getting annoyed about pacing a pack definitely delivered some karma because I basically ran most of the race solo after that. At Mile 10, I started running with someone running their first marathon and I was just mind-blown they were holding 6:15-6:20 in their first marathon. They also looked incredibly relaxed and I’d certainly say they looked more comfortable than me. They told me their plan was to see how they felt at 18 and go off if they felt good. I think to myself. “Welp, I’m going to get dropped.”

I had this constant issue throughout the race of missing the mile markers; they were pretty low to the ground and often being covered by spectators, so I missed quite a few (hence, using Strava splits). Based on estimate math, I think I crossed the 13 mile marker at 1:22:00ish and the half mark around 1:22:30ish. So I’m basically exactly at 2:45 pace. Some more nerves set in.

The guy I chatted with a bit from Mile 10 - Mile 15 was really the only person I talked to. Around Mile 15, I started losing them and I wasn’t sure if I was speeding up or they were slowing down. It seems like a little combination of both.

How was I feeling? I was not too confident quite honestly. At 10, I felt okay, but thinking about 16 more miles at this pace made me question if I could hold. At 14, I felt better knowing I had half to go, but again, could I hold on? My quads felt decent (they used to always go on me in races). My calves had threatened me with cramps in the past two marathons EARLY, but they felt fine.

In 3 of my 4 first marathons, I bonked at Mile 16- Mile 18. I always tell myself now, “If I make it through 18 feeling okay, I can make it to the finish line.” At this point in the race, you’re going in the opposite direction of some slower runners (the course is basically two loops and you do the second loop backwards). The people on the other side were super sweet and providing cheers as I ran on.

The temperature started great (low 40s with a breeze), but at this point, it must have been 50 and the sun was out. I didn’t feel too hot, but it was definitely something I was mindful of and I made sure to take an extra salt tablet here and there when I felt hot.

Mile 18 is the first sign of worry as my right foot begins to cramp. I’ve experienced them before in races and know that if I just keep running, it will go away. And, that’s exactly what happened. At this point, I’m probably dealing with a cramp-feeling twice every mile in my right foot, but I make sure to take Gatorade whenever I can and pop salt tablets at a reasonable rate.

I’m also running SOLO here. I pass runners occasionally (I got passed by one guy at Mile 16 and he was cooking; he must have negative split by 5-10 minutes) and then just go back to running solo. It honestly felt like a training run with how empty it was at times.

Closing miles: Miles 18-20, between the foot cramps and just mentally trying to prepare myself for pain in the last 6 miles, really had me wondering if I could hold on. But all of a sudden at Mile 21, it’s like I caught a second wind. At one point I’m legit talking to myself and say, “You can do this. You just have to be tough.”

I’m now playing the game of when is too early to try to start picking it up. I also felt good at Chicago in October 2023 at Mile 21ish, but at Mile 24 I was hurting bad and slowed by 5-10 seconds per mile to the finish.

I am slowly catching people throughout Miles 22-24 and when I get close to someone, I reevaluate how I’m feeling and see if I need to slow down. People who I distinctly remember going off earlier in the race I’m catching now and it’s honestly something I never expected from myself. I have not finished a marathon feeling strong.

Before the race, I did some math and said to myself that if I cross the Mile 24 marker at 2:30:25ish, I can run 6:30 the rest of the way and hit 2:45 (worried that I’d be holding on for dear life). Funny enough, I cross it at 2:30:35ish (almost exact) and feel strong. I don’t feel amazing, but this is better than I could have ever imagined. I soon pass a guy I ran with for a quick second early in the race and I contemplate staying with him to be safe. He tells me to go off, so I do.

I take one last sip of water at Mile 25 and know at this point, unless something drastically changes, I have it in the bag. The question is now just, “How fast?”

I catch one last guy before Mile 26 and am just working my way towards the finish with no idea about the time I’m running. The crowd support is picking up (it was pretty solid between 25-26.2, but definitely dead at points in the high teens and low 20s) and I’m just dying to get to the finish line.

I do some miscalculation because I forget that my watch has me running about an extra .3 at this point, so the last .5 or so feels like forever. I spot my mom and brother near the finish line cheering me on and I cheer back at them.

I always imagined being able to smile at my family when reaching the finish line, but I didn’t think it would happen… especially when running 8 minutes faster than ever before; again, every other marathon I’ve finished basically holding on for dear life.

I spot the race clock and notice I can get in right before 2:44 if I speed up. I open my stride a bit and finish with the race clock hitting 2:43:58. I officially ran 2:43:46.

Post-race

I finish and the pain rushes through my quads and calves. I genuinely say to myself, “Wtf just happened?” I completely shocked myself. I dreamed of having a race like that, but I really didn’t believe that I could do it. I had so many races of dying at the end that I kind of started feeling that was just the type of runner I am.

I’m still perplexed that I never hit the wall and I’m still processing it at all. I’m just really happy I can now say that I’m a 2:43 marathoner. 1.5 years ago, with a PB of 2:59 and having just run 3:09 in Chicago 2022 after expecting 2:55, I wouldn’t have believed this.

The experts are right. Mileage is king. My quads hold up better in marathons now and maybe even more important, my pain tolerance is higher. I’m going to celebrate this for a few weeks and I have a half marathon in 5 weeks. My PB is 1:20, which I think this race indicates I can go 1:17 - 1:18, so I’m excited to see what I can do.

Sorry for the novel and thanks for reading!

Edit: Typos.

Race Information

• Name: Jersey City Marathon
• Date: April 14, 2024
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Jersey City, NJ
• Website: https://www.jerseycitymarathon.com/Race/Info/NJ/JerseyCity/TheJerseyCityMarathon
• Time: 3:17:XX

Goals

Splits

Background

A fair amount of this report is about my injury. I was diagnosed with a low-grade stress reaction in my tibia 5 weeks away from the goal marathon but was able to get through it. While everyone's case is different, I wanted get some more anecdotal info on this sub about an injury, specifically a low-grade stress reaction 5 weeks away from a goal marathon.

This was my fourth marathon ever but third since November 2022. In 2015 I completed my college career as a D1 College XC and T&F athlete, ran a marathon, and afterwards took several years off of running. I was humbled getting back into it in my mid-20s but managed to put together some decent half marathons (1:17 PR) since in my late 20's/early 30's. I haven't put together a good marathon though since 2015. My last 2 attempts led to terrible cramping in both hamstrings.

Training

After a disappointing NYC Marathon in November, on 12/11, I started a modified Pfitz 18/55 plan to add a 6th easy day and take some of the long runs from the 18/70 plan. This works out to be an 18/63. I also was added more "strength days" using the workouts in the back of Running Rewired by Jay Dichhary. I wasn't quite ready to jump to 18/70 since I am injury prone, I was hoping more time in the gym would help.

I had a great Training Block 1 & 2 in Jan. and Feb. This is a challenging plan and has some 20 milers pretty early on (if you're taking from the 18/70 plan like I did). I managed to run 6:30-6:40/mi pace relatively comfortably in the MP long runs. My tempos were usually just sub 6:00/mi pace. All was looking great and on track for a BQ! I was basing these workouts based off a 1:17 HM I ran in the fall rather than the full NYC Marathon I ran in 3:23 (I mentioned the debilitating cramps). Besides some aches and pains, it all seemed like it was coming together nicely.

Training Block 3 - Race Preparation: Where it all fell apart....6 weeks to go calls for an 8-15k tune-up on Saturday. I ran a 10-K on my own on roads in 35:02. On Sunday day I did 18. Ouch, I am sore. Wednesday then calls for 5x1000 @ 5K pace. I gave it strict 2 minute rest. Ok, now my calves are tight. Thursday, my body is in shambles but shuffled through my easy runs until Sunday. Sundays big run is 18 with 14 @ MP. The big one! It went great! Average of 6:30/mi for the MP portion

The Injury -- Monday; Do I have a stress fracture??? My shin can hardly bear weight. It does not feel like shin splints and does not feel like a muscle injury. I booked a Dr. appointment ASAP, no time to waste 5 weeks out. By end of week I was diagnosed with a low-grade stress reaction in the tibia. By the next week I was cross-training with biking but multiple doctors and PTs agreed I need at least 2 weeks off running for this injury. That puts me into the taper. I made the decision to bike a couple hours a week while going to PT.

For example 4 weeks out; 2:20 total biking + PT... 3 weeks; 4 hours biking... 2 weeks; 4.5 hours biking & reintroducing running (2x 30 min runs)... 1 week out: biking (2hrs) and running (2hrs, 20 min) mixed. I did a 10 miler this week and my quads were very sore afterwards but that was a good confidence booster. <1 week out, taper week, consisted of mostly easy runs with a Wednesday with 2 MP miles thrown in there. Shin pain went away after ~2 weeks but my calf was still not 100% throughout.

Pre-race

Carb-loaded for 3 days. I'm usually pretty carb heavy, so this isn't a challenge for me. However, the race day fuelling is. Race start is 7 AM, I woke up at 4:30, had a bagel with PB and a banana on it, with a cup of coffee. Left for the start around 6 and had a chill pre-race morning. Had another banana and a Maurten with caffeine right before the start.

The porta-potty experience for this race was as good as it gets, no issues and TP for all.

Last minute change I made was to switch my race day shoes from Adidas Adios Pro 3s to Asics Superblast. The Superblasts are easier on my calves and shins. This was a good call.

Race

The JC Marathon course is pretty good. The race starts in downtown JC, exits downtown for a bit, and goes into a less populated, less crowd-supported area for about 6 miles then re-enters downtown, where the Half-Marathoners finish. The vibes downtown in JC are great. Friends and family who were watching had a good time getting around and were able to access multiple viewing points easily.

My strategy for this race was to go out at 1:30 for the half and reevaluate. I know I can go sub-3, but the injury left a lot of unknowns out there. I was running steady 6:50s for the first half-marathon but had extremely sore quads about 12 miles in. It felt like I just squatted until failure the day before or something. I'm not sure if this was from not running much for the past 5 weeks, or if it is from replacing the running with biking. Either way, I knew my body was not up for it and I had to adjust or risk a catastrophic failure. I slowed to 7:30+ pace for a bit and tried to do some high-knees, butt-kicks and to loosen up my hips to shake out my legs. When I tried to do so I felt minor cramps coming on in my hamstrings so took another minute to get going. I lost 2 or 3 minutes here, but better than full body cramps that I've had at other marathons.

My race from here on out was once again survival. I wanted to avoid major cramps and bring it in with some pride. I had an eye on the clock and adjusted my goals from Sub-3, to Sub 7:00 pace to Sub 7:30 pace. My quads were in excruciating pain for the last 10 miles but I was just focused on getting through it. I had friends waiting downtown from miles 24-26 and couldn't leave them hanging for too long! I finished my last couple miles in 8-9 minute place but glad I didn't have to walk. I crossed the line and saw 3:17 on the clock.

Post-race

Everything hurts. Monday off after a Sunday marathon is an absolute necessity. Although I know I have faster times in me, I am glad I stayed disciplined through PT and cross-training after getting injured 5 weeks out from the race. I'm glad I didn't continue pushing and turn the stress reaction into a stress fracture. I'm not sure why my quads felt like trash on race-day but I did the best with what the day threw at me.

This is a crazy sport, I don't know why I love it but I do. I haven't had great marathon success, but when I do it will be even sweeter.

TLDR; I had a low-grade stress-reaction 5 weeks away from marathon day. Cross-trained and went to PT so was able to get to the starting line. I deconditioned somewhat significantly, but glad I was able to race. Jersey City is a good course for runners and spectators.

Made with a new race report generator created by /u/herumph.

https://hongkongfp.com/2024/04/15/organisers-of-beijing-half-marathon-look-into-embarrassing-win-by-chinas-he-jie/

A lot of people thought these were just pacers but his sponsor and race organizers are launching an "investigation". Seems like they were either unaware of the use of pacers, trying to distance themselves from a situation that turned bad, or buy time to come up with something to save the situation.

Sports gambling is also very popular in China and betting on people who you think are in a race and should win but then purposely lose can go wrong in many ways... especially if the person in question has anything to do with it. Not saying that is what happened but some people in China brought it up and it's another angle to look at it.

Had my first one yesterday! My during the training block I ran a 1.24 half so thought may as well go balls out for the sub 3, being well aware that I could potentially crawl over the line as oppose to trying a much more comfortable 3.10 or something. I ended up crawling over the line but not for the reasons I expected! Went through half way in 1.29.34 so pretty much bang on feeling absolutely fine, even thinking I could try and build a little. Around 18 started feeling what I thought was cramp a little bit so tried to shake this off but it just wouldn’t budge, and by mile 21 I had to stop to stretch it out. Tried to get going again but just couldn’t, having to walk every few minutes leaving me to do the last 4 miles at around a 12 minute pace, barely even managing a couple of minutes shuffle towards the end. Rather embarrassing! I had 4 SIS beta fuel gels and 2 normal gels during so don’t believe this issue was fuelling- certainly felt like I had more than enough energy. I’m beyond frustrated as it felt perfectly do able and until the cramp hit thought it was in the bag!

Longest run during training was 22 miles with a handful over 20 so believe I was adequately prepared- the only con being I didn’t do many marathon pace efforts during these long runs due to them being pretty hilly (each one ended up being around 1400ft of elevation) and to be honest I felt physically fine at sub 3 hour pace today, just unfortunate my legs didn’t want to play ball. I’m pretty sure I’ve somehow pulled both my calves during this now as walking currently is a bit of a struggle- many hours after and it’s not the usual muscle pain. Other than this I feel physically fine adding to the frustration that the 3 hours was possible if this didn’t happen!

Just wondering how I could go about preventing this from happening in the future?

https://nypost.com/2024/04/14/world-news/african-runners-appear-to-let-chinese-star-win-beijing-race/

The Weekly Rundown is the place to talk about your previous week of running! Let's hear all about it!

Post your Strava activities (or whichever platform you use) if you'd like!

The world’s oldest annual marathon is back as the 2024 Boston Marathon kicks off on Monday. This 128th running of the famous race sees some of the world’s best runners, including Hellen Obiri, Sharon Lokedi, Evans Chebet, and Sisay Lemma, as well as thousands of amateurs.

Streams:- Boston Marathon Live

The runners are getting ready and so are the crowds of people who love watching every year. It's a legendary day in a legendary town.

Tt's time for the 128th Boston Marathon, sponsored as always by the Boston Athletic Association. The event will take place on Monday, April 15, with 30,000 runners running from Hopkinton to Boston.

For those of us who can't be there in person for the 26.2-mile race, you can always watch it at home.

The 2024 Boston Marathon is happening on Monday, April 15. Here’s the schedule of start times for each group of racers (times in ET):

• Military March: 6 a.m.
• Men’s Wheelchair: 9:02 a.m.
• Women’s Wheelchair: 9:05 a.m.
• Handcycles and Duos: 9:30 a.m.
• Professional Men: 9:37 a.m.
• Professional Women: 9:47 a.m.
• Para Athletics Division: 9:50 a.m.
• Rest of Field Rolling Start Begins: 10 a.m.
• Rest of Field Rolling Start Ends: 11:15 a.m.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38350462/

Conclusions: Respiratory function may become compromised by the pressure exerted by the underband of a sports bra when women self-select their bra size. In the current study, loosening the underband pressure resulted in a decreased work of breathing, changed the ventilatory breathing pattern to deeper, less frequent breaths, and decreased submaximal oxygen uptake (improved running economy). Our findings suggest sports bra underbands can impair breathing mechanics during exercise and influence whole-body metabolic rate.

Race Information

• Name: Carmel Marathon
• Date: 4/13/2024
• Distance: 26.2
• Location: Carmel, Indiana
• Time: 2:58:19

Goals

PR: was 3:04:45 in Chicago 2023

Improve on 15 second BQ buffer

Sub 3

Splits

Mile Time

1: 6:52

2: 6:44

3: 6:46

4: 6:44

5: 6:49

6: 6:48

7: 6:48

8: 6:55

9: 6:51

10: 6:59

11: 6:49

12: 7:09

13: 6:48

14: 6:38

15: 6:53

16: 6:43

17: 6:58

18: 6:50

19: 6:45

20: 6:47

21: 6:44

22: 6:49

23: 6:53

24: 6:59

25: 6:50

26: 6:40

Training

35 | M, Followed a modified Pfitz 12/55 after running Chicago last October in 3:04. This was marathon #6

After taking October/November off post Chicago, I very slowly started running again in December after finding a great group of runners near me who were prepping for Boston. My goal has always been to eventually sub 3 and this group of people really motivated and inspired me throughout this cycle; I jumped into the 12/55 plan in mid January and was able to run ~105% of the prescribed miles, increasing a few of the weeks with additional mid week miles.

I made three changes to the Pfitz plan after running several 18/55 marathons previously. The biggest change was running only one TT, a local 10k that I ran in February with a 40:09. This was ~1 minute slower than the previous year which didn’t feel great, but at least I knew where I was in the cycle.

I was more flexible around the types of track workouts I did because I was training with people doing different plans for Boston, so I might have replaced a 5x1k with 6x1mi, or hill repeats instead of a tempo run. I also ran these faster than I historically would have which was difficult but not a killer.

Finally, I ran more miles at MP during long runs, although I modified what they looked like. I didn’t do the usual 18 with 14 at MP, 16/12, etc. instead I replaced with more 3x3 or 3x4 MP intervals and generally tried to end most LRs with 2-3 miles at MP.

Race

Said goodbye to my wife and 4/2 year old kids Friday morning and flew to Indy.

The weather couldn’t have been better at the start, mid 40s, and there were a TON of runners queuing with the 3:00 pacer. Off we went, and it was packed. The streets were very narrow with too many traffic circles to count and it was extremely congested for nearly the entire first half. Within the first mile someone tripped and fell, causing a pileup that ended at least a few people’s day.

The miles clicked by, and I was happy to cruise around 6:45-6:50 for the first 10 miles. The course moved from the streets to a paved trail (the Monon) which would be great for a solo long run but was not conducive to a pack of ~50 people running at 3:00 pace. With walkers on the trail and crazy aid stations, it felt like a major marathon at times.

As we began closing out the first half we substantially slowed in mile 12 which created a logjam; unbeknownst to me the pacer was crashing or injured and people were afraid to pass him. He bailed at the half (1:29:46) and without him, everyone panicked during mile 14 and sped up and the group thinned out which was awesome.

Side note: the people around me were PISSED that the pacer bailed; I’ve never experienced that before but was content to run my own race but I do think fewer people hit their goal time because he jumped ship.

I was feeling great, really enjoying the flat course, happy with where my body was and the timing through 14. I continued to take Maurten gels every half hour until 2:00, and then couldn’t really stomach anything else (a common problem for me). I ended up taking 1 pre-race and 4 during, supplementing with my drink mix and aid station water where I could get it.

The marathon battle started around 21, and I began the mental gymnastics of calculating pace and time until we finished. My brother in law ran the half and found me at miles 23 and 24. I told him at the start that this was going to be my Icarus run, and he was screaming ICARITO! at me like a lunatic. It was the push I needed.

I gutted through the last two miles, gave it everything I had, and crossed at 2:58:19, a huge PR, a negative split (1:29:46, 1:28:33), Sub 3, and hopefully (?) enough buffer for Boston 2025.

Post-race

Euphoria. This race was the culmination of many years of training and incredible support from family and friends. Something that once seemed impossible is now checked off the list.

I plan to take some time off, prep for a TBD fall marathon, and cross my fingers for some Boston qualifying luck.

Thanks for reading!

So I've been running in the Pegs for years, bought 39 and 40s sometime last year when they went on sale. Finally worked them into the rotation a couple of months ago.. can I just say that they absolutely suck? Am I the only one here?

The other shoes in my rotation are the Novablast 3, Endorphin Speed 3 and Clifton 8s. None of them are perfect (although the Novablast comes close), but they all have their strengths and weaknesses. I find that the Pegs have no positives and that I absolutely dread running in them. From a performance standpoint, I find that I have to work harder to run and at the same paces as the other shoes. The soles seems too firm and not at all responsive.

I recall the pegs being an above average shoe in the past. Good for most paces and distances (up to maybe 10-12 miles), but compared to the other shoes in my rotation, they feel like i'm running in bricks. Almost like the technology has not advanced at all (not sure if this is actually true)

It got to the point where I retired the 40s completely after 50 miles because they were so miserable to run in. Is it a me problem or Nike problem? I don't have any one in real life that would understand this situation, so I'm asking the internet.

For background, I don't do super high mileage.. maybe 40-50 mpw, but decent PRs (sub 1:20 HM, 18m 5k).

A place to ask questions that don't need their own thread here or just chat a bit.

We have quite a bit of info in the wiki, FAQ, and past posts. Please be sure to give those a look for info on your topic.

Link to Wiki

Link to FAQ

Howdy! Every 2 weeks per my plan, I do a long progression run where the last 15 minutes is intended to be at a calculated "tempo" pace. I calculated my tempo pace on McMillan...

For example, today my run goal was an hour progression run with the last 15 minutes at 8-815 min/mile pace (I train for 5Ks and my current goal 5K time is sub 24min @ ~740 min/mile; 6 months ago I ran a 5K at 7:49/mile and have been training consistently since).

The issue is these runs are such a suffer fest for me - I probably can sustain the goal tempo pace every other progression run; the other run I fry out and just can't sustain the pace. Today, for example, I was able to maintain the progression pace goal for about 9 minutes and then bonked). I probably did the easier part of the run a bit too hard but I was within the range of my zone 2 pace range. The last progression run, I was able to hit the pace but it felt at the max of what I could sustain for that duration at the end of a longer run.

What should I do? Should I keep trying for that goal pace with the expectation that it's just going to be tough and I might fail or is my goal tempo pace too ambitious? I literally get anxious on my progression run days because it hurts so much and I'm not certain I can do the workout.

Some other data - I run about 20 miles a week but am slow so dedicated a decent amount of time to running. I use 80/20 running as a guide for training but do a 2 week cycle to help with recovery.

Recently listened to an endurance fueling podcast about carb loading and it promoted a question they didn’t address. They outlined what I assume is the fairly standard recommendation of 8-12 g/kg body weight the day before your event.

My concern would be all that additional food/mass making its way through your digestive tract.

If you carb loaded on Thursday, for a Saturday event, largely eating “normal” on Friday, would the extra glycogen from Thursdays carbs still be in the muscles on Saturday? Or is it a short term thing and the body would move the stored glycogen out of the muscles?

Is anyone familiar with any literature regarding the change in force production or ground reaction force while wearing carbon plated shoes? Specifically if (& how) it changes with advanced athletes vs inexperienced runners.

I also wonder about the same forces during treadmill running; many view the treadmill experience as “softer” than road running, but that’s because of the elasticity of running on what’s basically a really taut trampoline.

My intuition tells me that inexperienced runners feel the “bounce” and the energy return and put themselves at huge risk of injury by creating far more contact force than they can reasonably handle, but I’m curious to know what others have come across out there..

TIA!

Saw one for Boston but Rotterdam is where it's at of course. Kelvin Kiptum was supposed to go under two hours this coming Sunday. Coming Sunday would have been history in the making but... it was not to be. RIP.

Weather forecast is perfect; 13 degrees Celsius with a bit of sun and modest 3 beaufort wind. Personal Record weather if one's training went to plan and no injuries or illness threw in a wrench.

Are you running? Confident or lingering doubts?

Edit:

Just saw it will be live on Dutch National TV: https://www.tvgids.nl/sport/nos-studio-sport-live-marathon-rotterdam (if you have a VPN, then it should be for free otherwise geoblocked I think, although might work in Europe)

Not sure how to watch it abroad, apart from Flotrack: https://www.flotrack.org/live/87498

What's everyone up to on this weekend? Racing? Long run? Movie date? Playing with Fido? Talk about that here!

As always, be safe, train smart, and have a great weekend!

Maybe I'm too early, but I'm surprised that I haven't really seen any Boston hype on here this week. I've got Boston fever right now. Are you running? Are you psyched? How's your taper going?

I'm running and this one will be a little special for me - I have a torn meniscus and as recently as a month or two ago thought I wouldn't be able to run this year. I'm thrilled that I've recovered enough to be able to run on Monday, even if I don't expect to really race it.

Race Information

• Name: Paris Marathon
• Date: 7 April 2024
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Paris, France
• Time: 3:02:52

Goals

Splits

Training

As it was my first marathon, I decided to pick up the Pfitz book and use one of the plans that fit my experience. I’ve been running for a few years but have mainly done shorter stuff (17.25 over 5km last June) and haven’t ever committed to the marathon distance. In my head, I had sub-3 as a goal given I felt my base fitness was relatively good.

Training started quite well as I followed the Pfitz 12/55 plan. I had been running around 50-60km per week for the second half of last year so I felt like I was fairly well prepared for what was to come. I found the longer marathon pace efforts tough as I hadn’t tackled anything like this before and fatigue was definitely building through the first block.

I picked up a bit of achilles tendonitis at the end of this first block which led to kms being knocked way down for a number of weeks. I’d rearranged some workouts within each week to accommodate some work stress and ended up trying to do 3 fairly long days back to back and felt the achilles towards the end. On reflection, the volume was probably ramping up a bit quickly for my level too.

Weekly KMs for 8 weeks before the race were 77, 13, 24, 33, 29, 22, 67, 51 so I was coming in off a less than ideal training block and only completed one run longer than 21km in the 7 weeks beforehand.

The achilles steadily improved towards the marathon (albeit with a couple of setbacks as I pushed the volume too much) and I felt confident that any residual pain wasn’t debilitating to my performance. I decided that sub-3 was very unlikely but that under 3:15 should be achievable and even under 3:05 if all went to plan.

Pre-race

I arrived on the Eurostar at lunchtime on Friday and went straight over to the Expo to collect my number. Ended up racking up 10,000+ steps on the Friday through travel etc and a similar amount on Saturday as I went to visit the Shakespeare & Company bookshop etc in the morning.

As I have done with other events, I had a big pesto pasta dinner the night before and had been constantly grazing on snacks for the few days before to stock up on carbs. On the morning, it was an early alarm to wolf down a couple of bagels/bananas before the 8.05am start.

I had a short panic the night before when I realised I’d left my Stryd at home and therefore wouldn’t have power during the race. In the end I think this was probably not a bad thing as it meant I really focused on feel and HR as opposed to Stryd predictions based on fitness I didn’t really have (90 day average for prediction).

Race

After a caffeine gel before the start, we were away. I’d decided that the race was a bit of a free-hit due to the injury and lack of training so I was going to go out at my original goal pace (sub-3) and see how long I could cling on for.

The first 5/6km ticked by and I was broadly on for around 3 hours, my HR was under control (sub-170 bpm vs max of 206) generally and I got my first gel down as I passed my family at the 7km mark. As we headed out to the park/woods I found my HR climbing and the discomfort starting to rise. I was conscious that there was a long way to go and that I needed to keep it steady but at the same time I wanted to stick to pace as long as possible.

As we hit the halfway mark I was really starting to hurt and my HR was sitting around 180 bpm, clearly it wasn’t sustainable to stick to 3 hours but I wanted to go as far as I could. I was making deals in my own head to stick to pace and was sitting just in front of a 3 hour pacer who had started a minute or so behind me.

After 30km and the tunnels/hills that you hit, the legs were properly sapped and I was feeling the lack of endurance training hugely. It became a battle to cling on and not to walk but I managed to keep moving and pushing towards the finish. I knew I was over 3 hours at this point but wanted to go under my secondary goal of under 3.05.

With a bit of a push down the final hill, I was round the corner and down Avenue Foch to the finish in just under 3.03. Hands down the deepest I’ve ever had to dig during an event to get through this and was an absolute shell beforehand. I couldn’t have given anything else to the race and so I can’t be anything but happy with how I did.

One flag for people doing this in future is that there are two sides to the start and they alternate the release of each. The pacers are all stacked on the right hand side so if you are relying on a pacer then make sure you get across to the right.

Post-race

All in all, I am pleased with my performance given the lack of training volume and particularly lack of long runs. I entered the Yorkshire Marathon in October the morning after the race as I was motivated for another attempt at sub-3 later in the year.

In terms of feeling, I’ve never had sore legs like it, the injury meant my legs were nowhere near used to the effort of long runs at this pace and the next couple of days were a real struggle but steadily improving now.

I was happy with my nutrition plan, my gear choices and my approach on race day. I know what I was lacking in training and what I need to do next time to build on this. This really gives me a good base for other races in the year with (hopefully) an injury free training block before Yorkshire in October in pursuit of sub 3.

Made with a new race report generator created by /u/herumph.

A place to ask questions that don't need their own thread here or just chat a bit.

We have quite a bit of info in the wiki, FAQ, and past posts. Please be sure to give those a look for info on your topic.

Link to Wiki

Link to FAQ

This is unbelievable. They charge a lot. 5X as much as Peacock. Not a good business model and a lot of people don't like them. Check comments from the elites and regular runners on the Citius IG.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C5lbhgZLBYe/

Race Information

• Name: Marathon de Paris
• Date: April 7, 2024
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Paris, Prance
• Time: 2:57:12
• Shoes: Asics Metaspeed Sky +

Goals

Before starting my training block for Paris I was running 5-6 times per week (around 40 miles) and had HM and 10k PBs of 35:5x and 1:21:1x respectively.

I've long dreamed about running a sub-3 marathon but wasn't sure I was capable of it. I decided to set that as my goal and train with sub-3 in mind, but was prepared to revise that to 3:15 depending on how the training went.

Training

I followed the Pfitz 18/55 plan with some modifications: I swapped out the long runs with those from the 18/70 plan (mostly because I wanted the confidence of having done several 20+ mile long runs in training); towards the end of plan, I would run the final 1/4 to 1/3 of my long runs at race pace; I also normally did extra reps in the VO2 workouts, as they were less intense than my normal speed workouts, but reduced the warm-up/cool-down to keep the total distance for those days the same.

I also only did the first tune-up race, a 10k which I ran in 37:3x. The second tune-up I replaced with a fast 8-mile tempo run and the third with a lactate threshold workout. In hindsight, I would've liked a half marathon tune up in there too.

I had done the odd 50 mile week before starting but those were the exception so this was a step-up for me. By the end of the plan I felt like I could have handled a higher weekly mileage and, if I run another marathon, I'll probably follow the 18/70 plan.

This plan also introduced me to threshold workouts and weekday runs >10 miles. The former I will definitely be incorporating in my regular training going forward as I found them tough but very helpful.

Other than the planned changes above, I followed the plan closely and managed to only miss one session, a 5 mile recovery run, due to illness and work pressures.

Overall, I thought the plan worked really well for me; the hard sessions were tough but I think the last few months is the most I've ever enjoyed running. As the training plan progressed, I got increasingly confident I could break 3 hours.

Pre-race

For the two days prior to the race, I aimed for 8g of carbs per kg body weight (600g per day). There's no way I could have managed this without a couple of carb drinks per day, I used SIS Beta Fuel, which were pleasant enough.

I had to be up early the day before the marathon to catch the Eurostar and head across Paris to collect my race number. Based on testimony from previous years, I was concerned there would be long queues at the Expo but this was relatively straightforward and I was able to collect my bib and get my start corral changed (when signing up I gave my predicted time as 3:15 but by the time the race rolled around I was going for sub-3, I had to provide evidence in the form of a race certificate) fairly quickly.

It was a bit frustrating to have to walk through the whole expo when I rust wanted to puck up my race number and go. I also had to fight hard to resist the temptation to upgrade my Metaspeed Sky + for a new pair of Metaspeed Paris from the big Asics section you had to pass through.

The morning of the race, I woke at 6, had my usual pre-run breakfast (a big bowl of porridge with syrup) and mixed a Maurten 320 to drink gradually over the hour before the race.

Race

My plan was to go out at around 6:45 per mile (4:12 per km) and stick to that pace for as long as possible so I had a margin to slow down slightly in the second half.

Because they set everyone off in groups every 30-seconds or so, and because the Champs Elysee is to wide, the first km or so feels oddly uncrowded for the start of such a big race.

In the city itself there was a lot of support but once you get out into the Bois de Vincennes to the west of the city, it's more or less just the runners. This wasn't an issue as it's the part of the race, from about 7 miles to around half way, when you just want to be chilling. This section of the race, out in the woods, does seem to go on forever though; it doesn't look like that much on the map.

I was taking on one gel (30g carbs) every 30 minutes, I normally consume each one gradually over 5-10 minutes.

From about half way, I was just focused on maintaining my current pace until 30km, then 35km, then 37km. It wasn't until we got to 5km that I knew I was going to be able to keep my pace up until the finish and, when we got to 40k, I emptied the tank, running most of the last 2k at half marathon pace despite a few twinges of cramp.

The crowds in that final few miles were absolutely incredible and once you turn onto the Avenue Bugeaud it's a downhill blast to the finish, which feels amazing.

It's not a flat marathon but I found most of the hills were gradual enough not to cause significant problems. The exits to the tunnels were the steepest parts but were at least relatively short.

As is often the case in races, I was so focused on the race that I didn't take in the surroundings that much.

Post-race

I was absolutely ecstatic that I had managed a sub 3 hour marathon; something that has been a pipe dream for a long time but which, a few months previously, I wasn't sure I was even capable of.

I'm extremely pleased with my splits. A slight negative split overall, I think, and fairly consistent across the distance. 35-40k was my slowest split but I believe that's the biggest uphill section of the course and I was subsequently able to finish strongly.

I think I was still doing well aerobically towards the end of the race and my HR wasn't looking too bad but I don't think my legs could handle much more. Not really sure what this means. I spend the next couple of days in Paris, stuffing my face with cheese, croissants, crepes and croque-monsieurs.

At the moment, I'm on the fence between this being my last marathon or taking my training up a level to see how much I can still improve. It may all hinge on whether I ever get lucky in the London ballot.

Kit

I ran in the Asics Metaspeed Sky +, which I also wore for my HM and 10k PBs last year. I was very happy performance-wise but my feet feel extremely beat-up afterwards. Not sure I'd wear them for a marathon again.

I've stuck with Asics since my first proper pair of running shoes; they just seem to work for me and I've never had any serious injury problems in over 10 years. In this training block I also used the Superblast for medium/long runs, my long-serving DS trainers for track sessions and Noosa Tri for everything else.

I broke the cardinal rule of "nothing new on race day" with a Nike Aeroswift singlet, which gave me some chafing problems at the armpit. In my defence, it hasn't exactly been singlet weather in London all year and there's limited damage a new top can cause.

I used Precision Fuel gels for the race. I tested a bunch of brands in training and picked these because the taste was pleasant but fairly neutral, they went down pretty easy and, as I wanted 60g carbs per hour, I liked the simplicity of one every 30 mins (also frankly because I think the packaging looks cool). I was getting a bit sick of them after the fifth one in the race. I think these will be my go-to for races from now on but I'll stick with something cheaper in training.

I also really recommend the downloadable data field for Garmin watches called "Race Screen", it puts all the most important info for races on a single screen and applies a correction to your distance and average pace if you manually lap when passing a distance marker, which I find really useful.

Made with a new race report generator created by /u/herumph.

### Race Information

* **Name:** Berlin Half

* **Date:** April 7, 2024

* **Distance:** 13.1 miles

* **Location:** Berlin, Germany

* **Time:** 1:27:38

### Goals

| Goal | Description | Completed? |

|------|-------------|------------|

| A | Sub 1:25 | *No* |

| B | Sub 1:27 | *No* |

| C | New PB | *Yes* |

### Splits

| Kilometer | Time |

|------|------|

| 1 | 4:02

| 2 | 4:06

| 3 | 4:04

| 4 | 4:07

| 5 | 4:06

| 6 | 4:10

| 7 | 4:03

| 8 | 4:13

| 9 | 4:07

| 10 | 4:09

| 11 | 4:12

| 12 | 4:05

| 13 | 4:05

| 14 | 4:19

| 15 | 4:11

| 16 | 4:08

| 17 | 4:08

| 18 | 4:13

| 19 | 4:18

| 20 | 4:09

| 21 | 3:37

### Training

Background: 6,4/194cm 77kg male runner. Did a 1:31 half in oct and used a 10km on the 31st of Dec as starting points for a 14 week build to Berlin.

I will attach a picture/link to the 14 weeks of training, but did 4h and 10 minutes on average per week (around 50km/week). Normally consisting of 1 long run, 2 easy runs (1/2 of those being to/from work commute, marked blue in overview) and one interval/tempo session.

Long runs progressed from just easy miles to include HMP/MP segments in the end to train running on tired legs. And intervals went from shorter to longer, though still trying to add some shorter faster ones once in a while to make sure speed is still there.

Tempo runs is probably where i "failed". Not doing enough/long enough ones or being a bit too happy to break them into e.g. 2x3km instead of 6km tempo. I just simply feel they are incredibly hard to do especially on tired legs so that is something i need to work on.

Anyway if anyone wants to look over my training overview and have any comments I would be happy to have any! My training is probably what people would call "low milage" and i would love to get up to 5 runs/week if time and body allows.

https://imgur.com/pVJ3DVC

### Pre-race

This also worked as a family vacation so drove to Berlin from Denmark on the Friday and did a few strides. Saturday was limited sightseen due to try and keep the legs fresh for the Sunday run. I think i managed that as good as you can without beeing too selfish. Recovery boots are amazing for this kind of thing!

Pre-race was fine, did 2,5km warmup with some strides as usual and took a gel 20 min before starting. Berlin was really good at seeding people, so nice not to have to run people over in the beginning! The biggest issue going into the race was the warm weather up to 24 degrees on race day, not optimal for racing fast! And it also turned out to be the biggest issue on the day...

### Race

The race started nicely i tried to keep pace chilled but you just get sucked into it. At the start it was also a bit cooler and a little downhill so i paced maybe a bit optimistically! KMs went by and things felt fine except heart rate was too high right from the start (or maybe my threshold has increased?).

First 5 km ticked by in just about sub 1:25 pace which with the heat was not a realistic target. I tried to pace as evenly as possible drink at every aid station and then take a gel at about km 13. For some reason Berlin offers warm tee in the depot??? And it was a bit hard to find out what was just water and where they had electrolyte/sportsmix water, something they could really improve on, same way as the gels they offered were at a stand alone depot without water.

Anyway i progressed and at km 8 i started to hurt i a little. After km 11 i catched a second wind and felt amazing for 2 km before hitting the sun and warm weather hard at 13. From there on it was just, try to keep pace honest, get something to drink, a gel (think i ended up eating almost 2 in the 13-16km time span probably a bit too much but i got insecure as i could not find the sportsdrink water!).

Pushed and pushed towards the finishline tried to find every kind of energy left in my system pushing 183 BPM last 20 minutes! In the end I made it across the finish line, somewhat happy with the result given the conditions.

### Post-race

Some water and a banana (still no electrolytes Berlin!) and i quickly felt suprisingly good! Starting to wonder if i gave everything but the numbers says i dug deeper than ever. So just tankful for a quick recovery, straight to the playground to find my family, get a burger to the hotel to chill there for an hour or two before exploring Berlin some more. No time to feel sorry for yourself with small kids around :D

Next stop CPH Marathon aiming for sub 3:20!

Any feedback on my training is grealy appreciated!

Race Information

• Name: Berlin Halfmarathon
• Date: April, 07th 2024
• Distance: 21,1km
• Location: Berlin
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11125737381/overview
• Time: 1:40:15

Goals

Splits

Training

The training was not very specific for the race itself - stayed pretty stable around the 40-45km per week mark from November onwards with 2-3 weeks in the lower 30s cause of work/ life - having a newborn made it difficult to allocate a lot of time for running and thus I mostly run three times a week in the early mornings with a long run on Sunday, typical around 23km.

Started quite late with some more specific speed workouts in terms of intervals and tempo sessions in march, mostly because I really was happy to get my miles in while having not the best sleep and having to stay up early before work for my runs.

Pre-race

Since I live in Berlin and it was my third time racing the Berlin Half I wasn't to nervous about it. Picked up my race stuff on Friday evening (best time imo, Friday and Saturday during the day the queues are insane) and had a chill Saturday outside, enjoying the good weather. On Sunday I woke up in time, had some small breakfast and took a Maurten Drinkmix while taking the train to meet with a fried of mine around 2 hours before start and enjoy the atmosphere and meeting up with some running crews.
Did some light strides and warmup and went into the starting block C - take a Maurten few mins before start and off we go.

Race

The weather was hot. During the week it was around 13-16°C (55,4 - 60,8°F) with the occasional rain. On Sunday it was creeping up towards 21°C (69,8°F) when the starting gun went of. My goal was to maintain a 4:40min/km pace which would have resulted in a comfortable 1:38:27 goal time. The race was - as usual - super crowded. Even though I started in the third block, just around 5 min after the elite, the first 10km were pretty much spend with dodging people and speeding up to get into some gaps between and not get stuck. This meant I couldn't really get into a good rhythm, but at least the atmosphere at the side of the track was great.
Nevertheless, I made good ground and my legs felt good. The first five kilometers are pretty straightforward, then kilometers five to ten with a few more bends and a hairpin, but as everyone knows, Berlin is a fast course with hardly any inclines and lots of straights.
At kilometers 6 and 12 I took a gel and drank some water at each of the water stations - I walked a few steps to drink the water in a reasonably controlled manner and to avoid accidentally waterboarding myself while running. That cost me a few seconds at the time, but I think on balance it saved me more time than the time it took to drink.
I felt the heat quite a lot and around 15km I realized that my HR was approaching a red zone - I kept pushing but at around kilometer 17km my body and arms felt cold, I had goosebumps and knew that the last stretch will hurt.
My HR was creeping up and surpassed my - so far thought - maxHR of 194bpm; since I was wearing my HRM-chest-strap I think the reading was quite accurate, since it was a steady uprising until around 201bpm shortly before the finish line.

Post-race

When finishing the race I was completely done - was looking like a zombie and needed 2-3 mins in the finish zone to gather myself. Saw a friend of mine, grabbed some warm sugar tea and walked back to our dropbags - on the way out I was able to view the official race result and tbh the 1:40:15 crushed me.. missing my goal by 16seconds was super sad in the moment, esp. because it really felt so hard during the last 5-6km of the race and I thought I had made it (GPS reading of my watch was a bit of with 21.5km total, so I knew I had to wait to see the result online to verify..).
We picked up our kids and wives and spend the rest of the day in a nice beer garden.
Two days later I am still bummbed about the result. It was the third time that I entered a absolute depleted state at around the 17km mark - not sure if I was just running above my capacity or if it’s because I am a heavy and salty sweater.. have to figure that out.
Since I gained some weight during the last year with the newborn, I sit around 78kg on 174cm height, which is the biggest thing I could tackle to shave of some good seconds.

Overall, it was still a good day, I made a PB by around 1min and felt already pretty good on Monday again, with only some light sore quads.
Have some trail races coming up in June and September but will chase the 1:39 this year and will look for a good race, perhaps in July or August.

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I ran a Marathon this week for which I followed the pacing team. This wasn’t a goal race for me but my last long run before London 2 weeks after this one. My plan was to use it to dial in my nutrition. The goal for this was to run around half an hour less than my goal marathon time and so the pacers were to be a line not to cross until about mile 20 where I could run 10k at goal MP to check I still had fuel / wouldnt bonk.

Out of the pacers one pulled out with an injury which I think is understandable. The remaining pacer went for a positive split with their mile splits varying for +20s/mile to -30s/mile without any clear indication why.

I think if this was my goal time I simply would not have been able to keep pace on the speedier splits and falling behind would have been hugely demotivating for me. I followed them until mile 20 but I noted I was one of the few that did.

Orginally I had planned on following the pacer for my goal time at London. But now I feel uncertain.

Any good or bad experiences from others?

Race Information

* **Name:** Canberra Half Marathon (disaster race and some big lessons learnt)

* **Date:** April 7, 2024

* **Distance:** 21.3km

* **Location:** Canberra, Australia

* **Website:** https://solemotive.com/pages/canberra-times-marathon-half-marathon

* **Time:** 1:47

Goals

| Goal | Description | Completed? |

|------|-------------|------------|

| A | Sub 90 | *No* |

| B | Sub 92 | *No* |

| B | Sub 95 (Previous PR, but this time with strong finish) | *No* |

Splits

| Mile | Time |

|------|------|

Training

This would be my 4th half marathon and based on my training I felt pretty well primed to hit a sub 90, or at the very least, close to. Training cycle was 16 weeks, topping out at 82km in peak week, averaging roughly 70km. Workouts included 1km hill repeats (30m elevation), 800m intervals and threshold workouts starting at 2x3km (2 weeks), then 3x3 (2 weeks), then 4x4 (2 weeks), then 3x4 (2 weeks), working my way up to 5x3km (2 weeks) and finally 3x5kms. This was easily my strongest training cycle yet and not only was I doing a lot, but I felt comfortable with the load and the paces. Usually averaging 4:10-4:13 across the threshold workouts with 90-120s rest.

Pre-race

I remember being quite nervous for this race. Mostly because of how ready I felt. I guess in my mind I thought I had the best training cycle under my belt and would comfortably hit a PR of some sort. I stayed at a hotel not too far and walked down around an hour beforehand. Quick warmups and a toilet stop and made my way to the start line with a gel. Given the hills in the race, my strategy was to negative split, and especially take the start slow (4:20) given there was a 25m incline and then drop over the first 2km and then pick up the pace later on. As i was waiting, I saw the pacers make their way and saw the 90 minute pacer. 'Great! I'll let them do the pacing for me at the start so I don't go out too hard. This is the first time I had ever used a pacer and this will be the last.

Race

I followed the pacer and as we hit the middle of the first hill I remember looking down at my watch. 3:55. This would set the tone for the rest of the race and oncoming disaster. Splits for those first 2km were 4:07 and 4:09. I instantly knew i was in trouble but i remember thinking the pacers are much more experienced runners than I am, so i just assumed maybe he'll slow it down on the downhill or something. Whatever, just trust the pacer I thought. By the 5th km i realised the pacer had no intention of slowing down and that he was likely running even splits with no consideration of the hills on the course. At this point I was so out of breathe that I couldn't even put down a gel. I tried, and choked so hard that i almost vomitted and cause a stitch that stayed for the remainder of the course. By this point i had completely dropped off pace and i realized there was very little chance i would catch up based on how my legs were feeling from what felt like a sprint up the hill. From 10km onwards my paced dropped off to 5:30-6:00 pace for the remainder and I have never felt more angry, sad, frustrated while running. I remember walking at various parts and was close to just leaving the race entirely. By the end as i watched people sprint past me to the finish line i just thought i'd treat the rest of the race like any other long run and just jog to the finish line.

Post-race

After the race i was feeling pretty emotional. Basically just went straight to bag drop, collected my things and left instantly. The next day i set out for a 16km recovery jog just to try and put the disappointment behind me which really helped. Honestly even now, my emotions are still pretty raw from the experience. I think what angers me the most is the fact that I've never been in better form but despite that I wound up recording my slowest ever time. I guess a big lesson learnt is really to just trust my own strategy next time.

Made with a new [race report generator](http://sfdavis.com/racereports/) created by u/herumph.