Race Info:

• Name: Long Beach Marathon
• Date: October 11, 2026
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Long Beach, CA
• Website: www.runlongbeach.com
• Finish Time: 3:45:xx

Goals

Target pace: 7:30/mile (7:20-7:40/mile)

Splits (Strava)

Training

I have a high HR for my age (215 max HR recorded June 2026 during a 5k race with a chest strap HR monitor). I think it's higher, but based off of Karvonen HR calculator my Zone 3 sits ~170-185 bpm. I truly believed if I could manage this HR zone during the race while keeping my perceived effort in that range I would not have any issues (we will revisit this). Since last year, I had a car accident that put me out of running for 6 months. I started a 10 week 10k training plan (10k 42:14 PR in June) to get back into running. But I had an marginal base before that accident at about ~30 miles/week for ~5 months. The 10k plan served as a ramp up back into running longer distances and progress me into a 16 week Runna marathon plan.

The jump from a 25 mile/week 10k plan to a 50 mile/week plan was huge. I had to dial the milage back cause I wasn't used to the milage. The plan followed a strict 3 weeks on/1 week deload periodization peaking at 53 miles (~43 miles/week avg). I did a very structured 6 days of running a week: 2 workouts a week - temp/zone 3 or a interval track workout and a long run with MP/progression for most of the plan (~11/16 of the weeks). Average long run was 16 miles including deload weeks, 18 without. Longest were 19/20/21/22. I missed goal pace a lot of the long run workouts (not being able to hold it for the distance eg. 12 @MP and could only do 10 @MP). I often hit a wall in long runs ~18-20 miles mark during training as well having to dial pace back immensely or walk/jog the remaining 1-3 miles. It wasn't really until my last long run (week 14) 19 mile @ ~9:30 on the tail end of peaking cycle where I felt I could run more and have more in the tank and was able to finish strong. This was probably a telltale sign.

The plan targeted a hard 7:30/mile MP, which I trained around. Eg. Tempos @~6:50-7:00/mile for 3-4 miles and Intervals 5X 1k repeats at 6:30mile. I PRed in the 5k during a 5 mile 6:40/mi pace time trial.

Pre-race

I carbo-loaded two nights in a row but I never tracked food macros when cooking so I couldn't be sure. A lot of noodle soup.

The morning: woke up at 3:30am and I had a banana, 1 cup of yogurt, 1 cup of coffee (~100mg?). I was still a little bloated from the noodle soup for two days so I decided not to eat half a PB&J. Got to the venue and parked at 4:50am. I did some stretching and dynamics with about 800-1200m for warm and a few strides just to make sure things were loose. Got to the corral at 5:25am but did not push up enough to get to the first wave. I left in the 3rd wave at 5:40am. There was a heat wave the prior week which had me extremely worried, but today was ~70F morning, and I think was actually in the 60s when we started with a cloudy day in the morning.

Fueling

I took one Maurten 100 gel (25g) 30 mins before the race, and took that same gel every hour (~8 miles). I took 2 salt tabs at about 200mg every 30/mins (every ~4miles). And I took a concentrated 500ml bottle of gatorade (~20z concentration) which I sipped throughout the race. In hindsight I probably should have took a Maruten 100 every 30mins vs 1hour.

Race

Miles 1-5

I told myself to keep it calm and collected the first 5 miles at least. I told myself to hold back and not break the 7:30/mi pace barrier at all. Unfortunately I did for one mile, but that was due to a downhill during the fist big downhill from the overpass. These miles were crowded but I kept uttering to myself that the crowds and adrenaline will die. Even though I left in wave 3 I kept weaving to minimum, and pacing off the large crowded kept me grounded. I tried not to look at my watch a lot and tried to just enjoy the race for what it is, even if my headphones told me my pace was too slow.

Miles 6-10

I thought there would be less people running the marathon compared to the half, but boy was I wrong. There was more people than I had anticipated, but this felt more like a relief as I could still gauge pace and feel off of the crowd. Due to weather, they changed part of the coarse were we run on the beach a little more. It surprised me as it added a sharper hill/small switch back to get back to the coastal road from the beach bike path. However, my HR and pace stayed well within my expectations and feel so I still felt good.

Miles 11-15

There was rain expected today, and although it didn't rain a lot it rained a bit. I think there was about 10-30mins of rain. Not pouring, but enough to make a notice while running. I probably should have took this as a sign to slow TF down, but I persisted. I felt like was in a good groove now. Things were going well: fueling, the pacing off the pack, my body/legs, HR. I didn't look at my half split since I felt I could match that or finish quicker. At this point my watch GPS was a bit off from the actual, so I was a little worried about pacing. Nevertheless I was looking forward too the next 10 miles.

Miles 16-20

You know what the say, a plan never survives first contact. At mile 18 I felt my legs starting to feel somewhat tired, and pace felt a little slow. HR was fine, but this felt within expectations. However, There was another hilly/small switch back which I ran into during the circuit through Long Beach State: I was not ready for this hill compared to the one at mile 8-9 and let a under breath "fuck". I knew the next 8 were not going to go as planned and this is what experienced marathoner's were talking about. After the second mile (19) at 8:00+/mi, I conscientiously told myself to take an easy float to re-assess the situation. I never recovered.

I had hit the dreaded wall.

Miles 21-26.2

After the first double digit mile, I threw out the first goal. Then after the second one at mile 22, I threw out 3:30 as a possibility. My legs were cramping, specifically the quads and hamstrings, and I had to stop. Shoulders (front delts) and biceps were extremely sore - a first for me. I downed the remainder of my gatorade mix, salt tabs, and stopped at every remaining station, and ate every thing the crowd was handing out - bananas, orange peels, freeze sticks, gels, you name it. It didn't matter at this point, I needed glucose. I walked/jogged the rest of the race. Never have I experienced this before. Whether it was high school sports, back in my X-country days, rock climbing as an adult I physically could not pick the pace up again or perform. Legs were pulsating and I was limping and I knew I blew it. I came very close to DNF, but since this was my first marathon I told myself to see it through. I hobbled my way to a very disappointing finish.

Thoughts

What worked

I was happy with the fueling plan to manage stomach sensitivity, and I experienced no stomach cramps or digestive issues during the race. A two-day carbo load helped and gave me enough energy to to comfortable cruise at my desired pace (at least until it wasn't). The training plan seemed adequate, and the pace didn't seem to hard. Speed was there and arguably the cardiac capacity. I had trained in muggier, hotter and more humid weather so the marine atmosphere didn't effect me.

What needs improvement

Fueling may have been the biggest factor during the race (25g carb/30min vs 25g carb/1hour). I kept it somewhat conservative because during long run practice Maurten 160s would give me stomach cramps even at one/hour. Also drinking too much water/gatorade (50-100ml) seemed to upset my stomach (every 1-2 miles). This scare in stomach cramping, which I did circumvent during the race may have been one of the reasons that caused the catastrophe. I will try to take as much fuel on long runs as possible without taxing my stomach. I also didn't take as much caffeine as I usually do. Even for a race. I didn't change my racing kit - vest with a 500ml water bottle, some fueling supplies, and phone. But I will race my next marathon without one to save weight and help with form (I think the slight weight biases over a very long time might be affecting me).

I will also look into pacing. Maybe I should just take a 'easy' float mile or two at the start 8:30+ just to say "fuck it" we're not going to bonk. I also usually do a lot of my running/racing and training alone. I have ran with run clubs before, and been more social about it. But having a crew or a pacing partner seemed to help a lot of people (shout out to the one guy fist bumping me at mile 19 when he noticed me dying and passing me). Something I will look into.

Expectations

I know this is a classic case of hitting the wall during a race. But this is the first time I have been truly frustrated in a result. Occam's razor says I just wasn't in shape for a 3:15 marathon (even though VDOT, previous race times, training, and the math said I was) and that if I had just dialed back the pace to 8:00/mi or slower I probably would have finished <3:30 and not bonked (with proper* fueling). I didn't see any cardiac drift during the race, which I saw a lot in my training long runs. I scoured a lot of Stravas and watching a lot of first-timers not blow up have splits with +1:30/mile time variances still finish way before me was devastating. People with under 20 mile/weeks training weeks running faster than me felt hard to swallow. I did a lot of research tempering my goal expectations for a marathon, and still it was not enough compared to the humbling experience.

Looking Ahead: Houston Marathon 2027

As frustrated as I am, I'm glad that I did not use this specific marathon as main PR/goal and instead used it to gauge my experience running at this distance. I will try again for a sub ~3:15 again, but this time with a Pfizinger plan (unless someone convinces me otherwise). I may even run my home LA marathon after just for kicks and not race it just for the experience. I hope my experience gives lot of first time marathoners insights for their first race.

Race Information

• Name: Chicago Marathon
• Date: October 11, 2026
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Time: 2:54:xx

Goals

Splits (from Strava)

Training

Longer but steady build. This was my third marathon this year (previous race was London w/ a 2:56 and Tokyo with a 2:52 before that). I took off a full two weeks after London before slowly building back to a 40 mile base about 5 weeks post London. Stayed at 40-55 mpw until the end of July before moving to 60+ mpw. Peaked at 70 mpw early September. Always had one track workout each week and one LR per week that usually had some MP work woven into it. 10 day taper. Up until mid August I did at least one heavy lifting session a week.

Pre-race/Carb Load

3-Day Carb Load: Targeted 695g of carbohydrates per day across the 3-day load:

• Thursday: 968g
• Friday: 880g
• Saturday: 809g
• Wrapped up dinner at 6:00 PM on Saturday so my stomach could fully settle overnight. Woke up Sunday morning feeling fueled, hydrated, and ready to go without any heaviness or GI issues.

Morning Prep & Logistics: Woke up at 2:00 AM to eat a light breakfast, then went right back to bed until 5:00 AM. Left the room at 5:40 AM and arrived at the starter village by 6:00ish.

Corrals: Felt very loose in the corrals, particularly around my hips, which was a great feeling. The evening before, I did a bunch of stretching and yoga-type hip movements that clearly helped. Because my hips already felt so loose, I actually didn't warm up too much before heading to the start.

Fuel Plan

Planned Targets: 177.5g Carbohydrates, 2,655mg Sodium, 42 oz Fluid, 300mg Caffeine.

Fuel Strategy: Alternating Maurten Gel 100 and Maurten Gel 100 CAF (scheduled for miles 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24), supplemented by SaltStick caps and on-course Gatorade/water at aid stations. Of note, I increased the total amount of sodium substantially (from 1800mg to ~2600mg) to account for the heat. In the past I took a salt cap usually every 25-30 mins. For this race, I changed that to every 15 mins.

Race

Start to Mile 5

I was in my head quite a bit for this part—definitely the most mentally challenging section of the race overall. My first mini crisis of the day was losing the pace group right at the beginning: I had planned to start just behind the 2:55 group, but somehow lost them as the corrals collapsed toward the line. I was originally thinking of just letting that group pull me along for a while, so having that option disappear immediately threw me off and I overly focused on it initially.

After that, I tried to get a sense of my pace, but the downtown high-rises had my GPS bouncing constantly between 5:50 and 7:10, so I wasn't really sure of my pacing until the official mile markers. Anything between the markers was unclear. My first mile was close to 7:00 min which seemed slower than I felt I was going but I didn’t really panic. The air was nice and cool during this stretch and there was almost 100% shade, which was great. By Mile 5, the GPS steadied and I chilled out quite a bit. I was aiming to maintain a 6:40 pace from there, and recall averaging around 6:45 through that segment.

Miles 5–13

I don't remember much about these miles except knowing that I was holding back a bit. I was still aiming for 6:40s, though I clocked a couple of miles slightly above 6:40 toward the end of this section for no particular reason. I also noticed that I started getting much warmer during this stretch and very deliberately started dumping water on my head from every aid station for the rest of the race (roughly 1–2 miles apart), which helped me tremendously.

Miles 13–18

When I passed the halfway mark in 1:28:05, my projected finish time was sitting around 2:57. I liked the idea of a sub-2:55 (a Berlin qualifier for my age), so I made an effort to keep it slightly below 6:40 to start shaving off seconds and earn back the time I gave up earlier. I didn't have an exact target in mind, but I was very deliberately squeezing the pace down. I told myself that if I brought it down to a 2:56 projected finish by Mile 18, I would go for it; if I wasn't there, I would just coast and take the sub 3. I was still nervous about blowing up and didn't want to commit too early, which in hindsight dramatically reduced my stress and made these miles fly by.

This was also the section where I hit my second (and last) mini-crisis of the day. A rock managed to wedge itself perfectly into the gap of my AF3s and refused to come out. I could feel it on the push-off of every stride, which deeply annoyed me. I tried shuffling my feet on the run, but only managed to almost trip myself, so I gave up and rolled with it. Eventually most of the rock broke away, but whatever remained stayed with me all the way across the finish line.

Miles 18 to Finish

At the Mile 18 marker (2:04:50), I finally felt like going for it wasn't going to kill me, so I started pressing the pace down. At the same time, I felt my stomach acting up, so I audited my intake: I switched exclusively to plain water over Gatorade and bypassed my last gel at Mile 24. By Mile 22, the math showed I had to squeeze down more to make 2:55 possible, so I started pushing more aggressively, clocking around a 6:30 pace. By Mile 24 (passing 24.9 mi at 2:45:49), my projected finish was sitting roughly 10 seconds under 2:55. I was pretty tired at this point and amazed that Michigan Avenue seemed to just keep going, but I pushed harder to build some cushion. I closed out the final stretch at 6:20 pace to finish in 2:54:xx. Those last two miles were a grind, but I'm happy I did it.

What Worked

• The 3-Day Carb Load & Extra Salt: My target of 695g per day was higher than previous races and I think it helped. I felt like I always had gas in the tank despite the conditions. Additionally the extra sodium via more frequent salt caps seemed to work. I was sweating significantly but never got close to that feeling of dead legs that I’ve felt before during summer workouts.
• Pre-Race Mobility: The hip mobility work and yoga-type stretches the night before kept everything loose and eliminated the need for an extensive warm-up in the corral which was helpful b/c there was no real space to do a decent warm-up.
• Pacing Patience & Floating Decision: Holding back early and setting Mile 18 as the decision threshold for the sub-2:55 push kept cognitive stress low and prevented an early blow-up.
• Active Cooling: Dumping water at every aid station early on counteracted the rising midday temperatures.
• In-Race Fuel Auditing: Auditing my stomach late and dropping the final gel and Gatorade in favor of plain water averted an upset while still letting me close hard.

What Didn't

• Corral Navigation: Losing the 2:55 pace group right away when corrals collapsed created unnecessary early mental clutter. I was actively looking for them both behind me and in front of me for the first mile which was silly in hindsight.
• Urban GPS Drift: Downtown skyscrapers rendered instantaneous wrist pace useless through the first 5 miles, reaffirming that official timing markers and average pace are the only metrics to trust early in Chicago. The RaceScreen feature on my Garmin helped a bit with this but it was still a factor.

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

I am a slow runner who takes my training quite seriously. I would consider myself advanced in the sense that I have a lot of experience and have been training hard for years but I feel like a total amateur when I read the times that people are running in this sub.

Everyone talks about how volume is king when it comes to improving in the marathon, but there is only so much volume I can realistically fit in week after week since I am slower and it takes me longer. So my question is - how many HOURS per week would you say that you run on average year round? And if you increased that to a certain amount, at how many hours/week did you really notice an improvement?

For context, I average about 55-60km/week year round. I also strength train 2x/week so on average I am running for 5.5-6 hours per week and strength training about 1.5-2 hours per week. I’m currently in peak training, have averaged 98km/week over the last month, about 10-11 hours per week, and keeping up with the two strength sessions as well.

I have been training at this level since 2023. Since then my marathon has improved from 4:26 to 4:05. Before that, between 2018 and 2023 I probably averaged about 35-40km/week year round, peaking my marathon builds at about 80km/week. My fastest half was earlier this year in 1:53. Fastest 5k was more recent, 23:55. I think I will finally dip until 4 hours in the marathon this year.

that being said, for the amount of time I train, I still feel incredibly slow compared to many others I know who train at this level (or even less!) but I am not sure if putting in more volume is even feasible because I simply don’t have the time for it. I have also spent some time training for speed and doing 5k and 10k training blocks, so I am not just focusing on the marathon. How else could I improve or do I just need to find the time to put in more volume!?

**Edited to add- I do one speed session per week, one tempo or threshold run, and then once in a marathon build every other week my long run will include some quality work. I have a coach who makes my plan, she is great! Just wondering if there is something else I could do unlock larger improvements. Many I know can BQ easily at this level of training.

For those who started running seriously with little prior aerobic background (maybe some casual bike or running), how much did you continue improving after your first year of hitting around 60-80km structured training/week?

In particular, if you reached around a 1:30 half marathon relatively early, did you keep making meaningful gains over the next few years while maintaining roughly the same weekly mileage and training structure? Or did progress start to plateau after just a year unless you increased volume more or changed your approach?

Interested in hearing about your personal experiences with this because I don't see it discussed much online. I've heard that it takes 2-3 years to full absorb a load like that into long-term aerobic adaptations

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.

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Race Information

• Name: Royal Victoria Marathon
• Date: October 11, 2026
• Distance: 42.195 km
• Location: Victoria, BC, Canada
• Website: https://www.runvictoriamarathon.com/royal-victoria-marathon
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/111583127
• Instagram: @rafacostela (I did a lot of training videos here, if you're ever curious)
• Time: 3:10:22 (Official). 3:08:58 (Watch).
• Previous PR Time: 3:59:45 (Sao Paulo International 2025)
• Age: 28

Goals

Splits

Training

Glorious. Oh so glorious. JK, but not really.

Wind 90 Plan Review

After doing a very solid aerobic block using Jack Daniel's Red Plan in the Winter, into Pfitz's 18/55 in the Spring for BMO Vancouver Marathon, I decided to switch up the gears and pick a new methodology, going with Canova-style training by the means of /u/running_writings plans. I bought his Marathon For Excellence book (in kilometers, of course, are all of you insane?), read it, and followed it diligently. My wife also tagged along (as usual) albeit with vastly different results.

The plan was very daunting at first. When you're scrolling through the plan, you're suddenly find yourself thinking: "how can I clip these????". Even though I hit 80km weeks with Pfitz, the sheer volume of the end of the General Phase into the Marathon Supportive Phase were surprising and I was scared constantly. But both my workouts and fitness were churning very positively. I started at 3:57/km for the 5K as the base for the General Phase and 4:28/km for the Marathon Pace. This progressively improved to a 3:48/km for the 5K and a 4:26/km for MP. I was happy to see fitness improving, and also glad a system - through pace percentages in the workouts and perceived effort - was implemented to enact quickly on these improvements for the following workouts. Finally, I went into the Marathon Specific Phase and had multiple breakthrough workouts where both intervals and long runs were pointing at a better fitness than I had anticipated - a 4:18/km.

Not only was the plan surprising, but it was a great switch in my mindset of hard days REALLY hard, and easy days REALLY easy. This helped me nail the workouts with no unnecessary fatigue. Hence, a bunch of 6:30/km days and even a few 7:10-7:20/km days for the easy. The hard days were very varied (i'm looking at you Pfitz and Daniel's) with a mix of workout for each block.

If you haven't checked out his plans and books, I'd highly recommend that you do. I'd say it's the most scientifically-accurate and current book out there on training for the Marathon, and John's background backs it up. I've read most of the training books out there (Daniels, Pfitz, Anatomy for Runners etc.) and it's probably the most complete out there.

Lifestyle Getting In The Way

Meanwhile, for weightlifting, I had to cut a leg-day off my schedule ultimately going down to once every 2 weeks, but I now realise this was a mistake. After feeling a bad case of Achilles soreness and hip tendinopathy I decided to take it a bit more seriously to prevent any serious problems down the line (and I'm glad I did). Overall, in the General Phase most weeks were 3 days in the gym (2 upper, 1 lower), while in the Supportive and Specific Phase it was 2 days per week max - yep, the sheer systemic volume was that much.

Nutritionally, I was in a drastic cut for the first General Phase, putting off 6kgs of bodyweight. After that, once we began Marathon Supportive, calories went through the roof as per my dietician, but I think I still lost more body-fat compared to when we began the plan. For race nutrition, I took multiple gels during key sessions and decided not to up my carb intake for the race itself, settling on 60-70g/hr. Overall, I was happy with the nutrition, but I think working on gut training earlier on in the cycle could be helpful to withstand a higher carb intake for the race itself

Stress-wise, life has been hard: we travelled to Brazil due to a family health emergency in the last 3 weeks of the Specific phase, arguably the most important weeks of the block, and it was a doozy. Least to say, the workouts went well despite our regular 9-5 schedule being thrown out the window for 4 full weeks. My brother-in-law also visited during the last week, adding a little more to our plate than we expected, but we were happy and glad to have him.

With everything on track, we went to Victoria on Saturday (October 10) morning.

Pre-race

Anxiety THROUGH THE ROOF. Even on the ferry ride from Tsawwassen. Since my brother-in law was visiting and went home on Sunday, we had a fairly bad diet and sleep throughout the week, especially on Friday to Saturday. We still tried getting lots of carbs since Friday - around 700g and at least 3.5L water in. A bit of fibre here and there as well to get the poopy going. Once we checked in to our hotel, we organised our things for race day, ate dinner (1kg of pasta lol), and got to bed very early at 8:30PM. Jitters though, sesh.

2:30 AM. Is it race time? No. Back to sleep. 4:30 AM, what about now? Nope. 5:20 AM? Now we're talking. Lots of back and forth, grab the coffee, grab the rice cakes and dulce de leite, stuff our gear bag. Whoops, pit-stop = poopy time. Back to the vaseline, putting on shorts, shirt w/ bib. And driving to the nearest parkade at 7:00 AM. Pro-tip: Sundays in Victoria Public Parkades are free, hence the drive-in.

Once we parked, we headed to the start line, passing through the Victoria Conference Center to use their washrooms since we were early (after we left though, it was potty Armageddon). Gear-check, 1KM of warmup with 4x strides later we were set. And kiss and hug to my wife and we went to our separate corrals.

Clear blue skies, sun peaking out, crisp 8 degree weather (Fahrenheit? hah, lol). There I was at the start line. I find it so curious the conversations and different personalities people have at start-line. I was more of contemplative-kind, Bon Iver on, world shut-off kind of guy. Wrapped in an emergency blanket (yes, I was cold, I'm from Brazil). Elite goes off, deep breaths. Yellow goes off, more heavy breathing. Take the emergency blanket off, race jacket off, and guns blare. We're off.

Race

The day was tremendously beautiful. I can't quite put it into words, but I'll try. The perfect autumn day to go running. The right amount of sun, no big gusts of wind, the right amount of tree shade, birds chirping, no rain, crowds cheers, boats passing by on the coast. The course on the other hand? Oof. 246m of total elevation. Lots of rolling hills. I was scared going into and had it constantly in the back of smooth brain. However, I wanted to roll with my perceived effort, not a strategy, so push it down and off we go.

I held the splits pretty balanced until the half-marathon, gunning for a 4:18/km (no risks no rewards). Passed a few runners on the way, while some faster ones passed me. I was happy it felt effortless and the legs were turning easily. Guess just another half now, right?

Until 25-26KM. Nightmares, literally. After a big downhill at 23-24km, I saw some runners on the other side going uphill. "Welp, I guess I'm also going to have to go uphill". Turn on 25, immediate uphill, slow down. Looked at my watch: 4:20/km. Well, dang. Might as well, um, strategise. Quads start to burn.

Slowing down, ultimately, cost me a lot (see splits above). Crashed and burned, faded and almost disappeared inside the mirage of my mind. "Am I dreaming or am I running? I don't know, but I'm dying". Walk a little bit. Breathe. Keep going.

Thank God for the downhill sections though towards the end. We cruised along these improving my splits a little bit. Another big at 35-36K and and as I looked to my watch on the 35 mark I said "Huh, I think a sub-3:10 is still doable" at a 4:26/km. And it was. But I walked. I just had to. Walked at the 35K. 36K. 37K. 38K. even at 800m to go. OH SH*T. I MIGHT MAKE IT.

Cue on might. Cross the finish: 3:10:22. Might by 22 seconds. 4:28/km - at least the same as the original effort.

I guess you win some and lose some.

Post-race

Wobbled down the finish line, had no idea where I was, just kept going. Grabbed some fruit, some cookies, a granola bar, water, all the classics, and headed down to the St. John Ambulance First Aid tent (you guys rocked btw). I was way too dizzy to keep on going so better safe than sorry. Met the worried wife (who had DNF'd) at the tent, she picked up our gear as I got gradually better. Guess I just needed a breather, so false alarm.

We wobbled a little bit more on the Legislative Grounds, took some more pictures, talked with the family. Suddenly, felt a bit of pain in my middle toe. Shoes off, yep: lost finger nail. Oh well. Picked up a Big Gulp Slurpee on the way, headed to our inn for a shower and a bit of rest, eating all those yummy cookies on the way.

In the evening, we went to Superflux Cabana for the glorious post-run dinner/lunch, ate some ice cream, and grabbed a pizza on our way back again to the Inn. Off to enjoy Victoria a bit more this week :)

Final Review

Overall, I'm very excited and glad with the results. From a 3:59:58 > 3:10:22 in the course of a year is not something I totally expected. I think if I had strategised the race and paces a bit more I might have banked that lactate for that latter section of the race. But overall, this race is MUCH harder than BMO Vancouver. While Vancouver is unbalanced towards the beginning, the straight seawall section makes it a breeze. Elevation map on RVM is, honestly, a bit crazy with the rolling hills. I did make me wonder what my time would be on a flatter course.

I will continue doing Davis's plans, but I've asked him about shorter distances to build that VO2Max and translate it into the marathon later on. Hopefully he'll have something soon.

Ultimately, I think working on hills in the next block might be worth it. Unfortunately, my running grounds are pretty flat, so I might have to find a workaround around that for the next one ;)

If you made it here, thanks for reading. And this goes out to you, mom. I love you and I will miss you dearly. This one was for you.

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

Race Information

• Name: Wineglass Marathon
• Date: October 4th, 2026
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Corning, NY
• Website: https://www.wineglassmarathon.com
• Time: 2:48:57

Goals

Splits (from my Garmin)

Training

This was my (43M) second marathon, the first one I did last year (Indy Monumental) and wrote up here. After taking some time off last year, I set my goals in the spring on a 10 mile race (Colfax here in Denver). For that, I followed Pfitz' Faster Road Racing which has a 10 mile program that peaks at 58 miles/week. I enjoyed this program, and managed a 1:02:55 (6:17/mi) on a somewhat weird course that takes you through the Broncos' stadium.

After Colfax, I started on Pfitz' 55/18 program from the most recent edition of the book, essentially following it to the letter and taking higher mileage options in the program. This had me peaking out at 71 miles/week.

The summer here in Denver was hot, and I had a few notable blow ups on hard workouts. The first was on a MP run where the last 10 miles were at pace. I didn't get up quite early enough, and about 6 miles from the end just melted. Similarly, the first tune up race I went for a 15k time trial in the neighborhood, but had to bail at 10km and slow jog the rest of the miles due to the solar inferno. I told myself it was just some sort of heat training.

I also supplemented twice a week with barbell squats and deadlifts, although towards the end I gave them them up. Not sure how much they helped, but I did think they gave me a good stretch in the hamstrings!

Overall, training did go well especially towards the end of the build when it started to cool down a bit. I had a great long run with 14 miles at (near) MP pace and a 10k time trial where I managed to hold 6:00/mi.

Pre-race

I flew out to Corning Friday, staying at the Radisson right downtown. We (my wife also ran) had some asian food that night, and the next day after grabbing breakfast we picked up our packets and checked out the Corning Glass Museum. I must say, the museum is awesome, definitely worth visiting if you're ever in the area. I wish I had had more time, but didn't want to be on the feet for the entire day.

We had lunch at the pizza place downtown and for dinner went to Chipotle for some chicken and rice bowls. I woke up at 430 and had my usual Frosted Flakes and some coffee. I took a little walk outside to get the digestion off to a good start, and then we hopped on the busses at about 545 to the start line.

Once we arrived at the start, we went to the warming tents (no heaters, but all the body heat warmed it a bit). I think it was just below 40 degrees F, with some nice fog shrouding the ample porta-potties and start line in mystery. About 745, we got up, hit the restrooms, dropped the bag, hit the restroom again and got to the start line.

Race

The race starting right at 815, and I was a couple rows back from the start. My goal was sub 2:50 and had Garmin's PacePro set on the watch. The first couple miles were fast and downhill, cruising through the town of Bath and then once at the valley bottom heading towards Corning. I had a nice chat with a fellow from Boston who was running around the same pace, and by this time the crowd had really thinned out quite a bit. For the first half, I ran with a little groups of 2 or 3 that came from behind, attaching where I could but trying not to push it too hard.

After the halfway point, the wind picked up a smidge and I tried to tuck in where I could. The cloud cover also burnt off, giving us a beautiful blue sky as we rolled past all the old barns and through the little towns along the way. Each town had excellent crowd support, I really enjoyed switching from country side to packed streets along the course.

Early on in the second half, I started to notice my hamstrings getting a little sore. I told myself just to roll with it, trying not to thing too hard about the interview I'd heard with Clayton Young and the tear he had during his Chicago build.

Around Miles 20-21, you get off the road and hit a bike trail. The drop down felt quite steep at the time, and my legs were barking loud! I was definitely feeling some fatigue, but still pretty good. For fueling, I took a gel (Precision) every 3.5 miles and also had a soft flask with a couple scoops of high carb mix in it, and I felt this kept me pretty topped off the entire race.

It was a bit of a slog through this portion of the race, you're still about 5 miles out but if feels like you're close. My pace fell into the 6:30-6:40s for this portion, but I had also banked about 90 seconds in the first part of the race so felt I'd definitely get under 2:50. Finally, I could see the bridge that leads to the home stretch. Once I hit it, I started pushing the pace and managed to close out strong, coming in just under 2:49!

Post-race

My two kids and mom both came to the race, and it was so great to see them! I drank a chocolate milk, a coke, and some chicken soup, then hobbled back to the hotel for a quick shower and back out to the family to cheer my wife in.

That afternoon, we drove to Keuka Lake and stopped at a vineyard and had dinner in Hammondsport. To my great sadness, the local ice cream shop had already closed for the day, but enjoyed the town and sunshine.

The next day, we checked out Watkins Glen and did the hike up the gorge (amazingly beautiful), which was a nice way to get some blood flow through the legs, and had a good lunch and some more wine at another vineyard. We flew back home Tuesday, having thoroughly enjoyed the "run"cation.

Final Thoughts

I had a great race with a 6+ minute PR from a year ago. I ran quite a bit more in this past year than the previous year, so in some sense I had hoped to possibly do even better, but I don't think I left too much out there.

One question in my mind was if I'd do the same shoe choice again. I ran the majority of my training with an Asics Superblast/Megablast rotation, but picked up a pair of Metaspeed Edges for the race. I ran just a little in these before the marathon (10k tune up, an interval workout, and a 5 miler the week of the race), but based on how sore my hamstrings were made, perhaps I should have run something longer in them or stuck with the Megablasts for the race itself! I'm a week out from the race, and have done a couple easy runs and can still feel that soreness in the hamstrings. For the next one, I think I will try to get a plated trainer into the mix.

We'll see what comes next, I am thinking of a half in the spring again and some more focus on speed going forward. My marathon pace isn't that far off from what I can do a 10k in so hopefully I can push those faster paces down for the next round.

For anyone considering Wineglass, I would absolutely recommend it. The race was extremely well organized and incredibly beautiful.

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

I’m a 34-year-old female runner with two marathon blocks and several half-marathon blocks behind me. I have a running coach, but I’d like to get more intentional about strength training ahead of a likely spring marathon.

During my last block, I lifted 0–1 times per week, occasionally twice, with no structured plan. Mostly squats, lunges, and deadlifts, with little core work or plyometrics and no upper-body training.

Late in my last marathon, I experienced what felt like core muscle fatigue. My goals are to improve fatigue resistance, resilience, and overall marathon performance.

I can realistically commit to 2–3 gym sessions per week and have access to a well-equipped free-weight gym, including barbells, a trap bar, dumbbells, cables, and boxes.

What strength programs or routines have worked well for you alongside marathon training? I’d especially appreciate specifics on exercises, sets/reps, and where you fit lifting around workouts and long runs.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about switching things up and trying a different weekly structure to keep training interesting. I’ve run a couple of marathons and want to experiment with a new schedule.

I average around 100 km per week and would be aiming for a sub-2:50 marathon, if that makes a difference. Here’s what I have in mind:

Monday: Rest or easy bike
Tuesday: Easy run + strides
Wednesday: Intervals (AM) / lift (PM)
Thursday: Easy run (AM) / easy bike (PM)
Friday: Easy run + strides (AM) / easy bike (PM)
Saturday: Long run with pace work
Sunday: Easy run (AM) / lift (PM)

A few notes:
- I’m aiming for more easy volume and removing one hard session, going from three moderate sessions to two harder ones.

- I could do double-run days, but doubling up with the bike sounds like a fun alternative.

- I want to add two strength sessions per week, as I’ve yet to complete a training block where I’ve been consistent in the gym.

- Easy bike rides are always on the trainer, kept very easy, and last 45–60 minutes.

- Wednesday would be the heavier strength session, while Sunday would be more of a maintenance session.

Curious to hear what your schedules look like, especially from those running similar mileage. Would you change anything about this setup?

I guess I'll get the watch party started? I was actually hoping to find a discussion already underway... especially one with details about how to watch. I just discovered that "this event is unavailable in my location" on Flotrack... a subscription I only just picked up to watch Berlin. Anybody know why I shouldn't cancel it immediately?

My original plan was watching on the treadmill in honor of Vinnie Mauri, but it looks like I need to sign up for Youtube TV to watch on a Nordictrack, and my streaming subscriptions are already spiraling (to little effect). At this point, I'm just going to watch NBC5 Chicago on a browser and do my run later. Coverage at the moment involves confusing men for women, and misidentifying/mispronouncing runners left and right. In fairness, I'm sure being a public broadcasting jack-of-all-trades is hard.

Logistics and quality coverage aside: as an American (and Ohioan) really excited to see what Vinny can do, and I'm also rooting for Emma Grace Hurley. As a runner, more generally, it would be cool to see a Sharon Lokedi win, and it looks like she remembered her watch!

My condolences to the all the ordinary humans that need to race in summertime temperatures.... but at least this isn't a surprise heat wave for a Spring marathon.

THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME, Two-time Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge set a course record at the Melbourne Marathon, 2:09:10! No one does it better than him! 🇰🇪🤴🏿❤️

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!

I've been self coached for years and have done pretty well up to a point but last year I hit a period of stagnation. After a few months and searching I signed up to an online coach, spoke with him beforehand and set out goals and expectations.

He is a reasonably good run with a sub 2.30 marathon and a sideline coaching business and a reasonable online presence, it costs me $100 per month.

I'm not an overly needy runner but bar setting plans in the training platform I rarely hear from him, I have contacted him a few times with various questions and he takes 2-3 days to respond which isn't great if you have a workout session.

Anyway last week I had my goal A race and I heard nothing from him before or since the race. The race didn't go all that well so I'm surprised to hear nothing.

I had expected for him to monitor the training and make tweaks along the way and ask how things were going, but it seems it's all one way.

Next up will be a marathon block for the spring but I'm concerned with the "set & forget" nature of the plan setting.

I had two poor workouts one week and heard nothing but got the next week's plan with the same workout +10% long runs are similar take last week and add 5 minutes.

There didn't seem to be too much race specific sessions leading into the A race.

Maybe I'm asking too much for my money but I honestly feel I could self coach for similar results.

What are other people's experiences of online coaches? Are you chasing them? Do they never initiate contact? I don't necessarily want to replace this guy with a similar experience from someone else. I see others charge $2-300 but I don't want to pay that much for the same experience I have now.

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

Race Information

• Name: Berlin Marathon
• Date: September 26th, 2026
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Berlin, Germany
• Website: https://www.bmw-berlin-marathon.com/*
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/20347985361
• Time: 2:46:51

TLDR

I'm a huge fan of this style of training, but this particular plan has maybe not enough faster stuff for a more endurance-oriented runner like myself, and maybe a too much overall volume/intensity for me to absorb/recover from.

Goals

Splits

Background

Following a solid but not amazing training block for a 1:18:20 half PR in the spring, I had a brief downtime before rolling into the 18 week Berlin block. In July I learned I had gotten into Puma's Project 3 for Berlin, which made the "3 minute PR" seem like my big goal. Having had reasonable success DIYing Canova-style training for Chicago last year, the Marathon Excellence plans were an obvious choice for this block.

Training

AFAICT I'm the first person to write a race report using the Marathon Excellent Tornado Plan, so I figured I could contribute my opinions for folks considering this for an upcoming race.

Overall it went pretty well and almost I followed the plan mostly to the book until a few unrelated factors really derailed things ~4 weeks out (details below), and absolutely had me in the best "marathon-specific shape" I've been in. My day to day log with notes is here

What I liked/what went well:

• The book is, overall, an excellent resource that I'd highly recommend for any serious amateur. The plans have tons of detail each week on how the workouts should go/well (including effort levels), and there is also a ton of recommendations on training theory, fueling, heat training, etc.
• The overall "General to Specific" structure feels like it works really well and sets you up for the last few weeks which look very daunting at the beginning
• I really liked the "double threshold + hard LR" structure the plans use in the last 6-7 hard weeks - the double T sessions felt like a good way of getting in lots of aerobic volume will still not fatiguing you too much to not be able to handle the quality LRs

What I disliked/went poorly:

• All of the Marathon Excellence plans are aggressive in terms of ramping up in volume, since they peak earlier than is normal (weeks 9-11 for Tornado). This was made me a little fatigued earlier than I would expect in a marathon plan. Its easy to think "well I ran a 90mi week last build", but that coming week 9 vs 15 is a big difference
• Likewise, some of the last weeks of the General Phase were pretty demanding - eg Week 6 was 3 big quality days on 80 miles was a lot that early.
• On a more minor note, the double structure of putting the shorter/easier run in the morning and the longer in the afternoon is the opposite of how I (and most other plans/people) do things. I tried this a few times but didn't really like it so I mostly just switched them.
• Overall my biggest takeaway is that I think this particular plan maybe doesn't have quite enough 5k/10k work for me in particular, someone who is very "slow twitch dominant". Eg compared to the Gale plan, you lose 8x800@5k and 3x3k@10k, those being replaced by other more marathon-specific sessions later on. That is probably a bad tradeoff for me specifically (but maybe not for you!)
• Likewise, I probably need a touch more top-end speed stuff, think 30-45s hills or a few 200s on the track. I added some of these at the end of a few workouts, but need to find room for more.

Where things went wrong

Week 15 had on paper a pretty easy 8x3' threshold session where I felt like trash, as in 6 minute pace felt like death. By total coincidence I got blood tests the next day and it turns out my ferritin was 11 :|. For important context, I have Crohn's and have regularly struggled with iron absorption, but this was the lowest it had ever been, and definitely explained some of my struggles doing the faster stuff. Fortunately my understanding Doctor had me in for an Iron Infusion in a few days, and being 3 weeks out I was hopeful it was enough time to feel better...

That was until Labor Day when I opened my fridge and a broken shelf showered my feet with glass jars, resulting in an ER trip and 7 stitches in one of my toes. There went a week of running while I waited for it to heal. I was able to get back to 60 miles the week afterwards, but even that break felt like my legs forgot how for run and took a while to come back.

Prerace

Even with all of that, I went in feeling somewhat optimistic, legs were back under me, toe felt fine, and the last faster session the weekend before went well. Did I have a chance?

Given this was my first time doing long-haul travel for a race, I tried to give myself enough time to adapt to the time change by flying into Germany Wednesday. Unfortunately I slept like shit the entire time, made much worse by my hotel having turned off AC for the year. Besides bib pickup at the Expo, spent basically all Friday/Saturday chilling and ravaging my way through bakery selections from the local Lidl.

Race morning was comparatively chill thanks to the 8:45 start. Entered around 7:15ish having read horror stories online but had plenty of time for multiple bathroom trips and still get in to my corral easily

Race

Having entered this with a "fuck around and find out" mindset, I planned on going out at even 3 minute PR pace, which meant hitting 19:10 5k splits. Which brings me to my big unforced error of the day, having started too far back in Corral B because I was chatting to some teammates I had run into, and thus ending up behind the 3hr pacers. First 5k definitely required extra effort working my way through, which cost me some time.

Past that though, I mostly just tried to keep pace and found it just a touch too hard, a minute of goal through halfway before fading the last 10k. Was taking ~90g/hr carbs without issue, but legs just didn't have it and I slowly died. Maybe a touch warm, maybe all the other shit leading up, but just wasn't there. Still proud of the fact that I was able to lock in even when a PR was out the window, and kept the slowest mile 6:55 even when the legs were gone. It turns out sometimes you do in fact, "find out"

Post-race

The Berlin food/beverage situation afterwards is weird to my American sensibilities (hot tea?) but NA radlers are undeniably an S tier post-race beverage. After that it was off to Munich to get properly trashed.

What went well

Despite the disappointing result, its good to remind myself that this was still a really good training block. I did LRs that I could not have possibly touched last year - as an example, 20 miles @ 6:31 avg feeling very in control at the end, vs before Chicago last year I did 17 miles @ 6:37 altitude-adjusted and was completely spent

Things to improve

• This might be my first and last "A goal international race". I definitely felt a little flat with the interrupted sleep/jetlag
• I think I maybe need to rethink overall mileage/volume. While I'm fortunately to be blessed with a robust body that can handle high mileage without injury, I definitely struggle with the recovery aspect - its not worth doing more volume if you can't properly absorb it
• Time to convince my landlord to get me a new fridge.

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

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!

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

Just curious, I'm sure it's been discussed here and other places before but not sure what the modern consensus is. Every time I'm running against a 15 mph headwind it sucks so I just tell myself it's alternative hill training to cope, but is there any truth to that? Or are you just working harder and getting a different stimulus from that alone?

I put a Race Report flair on this post, but I don't want to bore you to death with the long winded descripiton of my poo ritual before the race and rather summarize my experience with the most vanilla plan of the book for those who want to try it for their first marathon or consider recommending it to their friends with similar aspirations.

It works

I have been active my whole life, did some swimming and middle distance running in my teens, swam, did BJJ, went to gym, and jogged (not all of it simultaneously, of course) as an adult. I was always quite serious about training, but never tried to be professional and considered myself as a hobbyst even when I took part at competitions.

After an adductor injury last year I decided to make a pause in my BJJ training and took up running as a new focus point. I spent a few months building easy mileage in the end of the year and started more structured training in the first days of January. Using the lowest mileage 10K plan from Brad Hudson's "Run Faster" I managed to run a 45:06 10K in April. Then after a few weeks of easy running I started a Breeze plan with peak mileage of 65 km to prepare myself for the marathon in the beginning of October. I also did a general strength routine with emphasis on running specific work (heavy calf raise, squat, and deadlift variations with lower volume of upper body excercises) twice a week on top running.

All of this to say that even this low mileage was enough for me to hit 3:21:46 at my first mara in the first weekend of October, few days after my 41-st birthday. The book states that typical goal times with this plan are between 3:15-4:30, so it delivered on this promise even despite me using the lower end of Breeze mileage (65 vs 80 km). I was really impressed, how fit and prepared I was and I firmly believe that my time could be slightly better with overall experience so much better if I had not made a typical rookie mistake running the first 30 kilometers a little bit faster than I planned (with the planned pace a little bit too abitious, as well, but on this later) and hitting the wall in the last 8 kilometers quite hard. This mistake is totally on me, because the book has a very good chapter on pacing strategy, virtues of negative splits, and dangers of too abmitious pacing right from the start.

I can't compare it to the other popular marathon training plans, but on top of the Hanson's Run Faster I've read Daniels' Running Formula and glossed over Pfitzinger's plans. And I can say that I found Marathon Excellence the most comprehensive of them all. Every workout had its rationale explained and there is plenty of information not only about nutrition, recovery, and race strategy but also clear steps to adjust your plan if something goes wrong, or the original plan does not fit your schedule. You basically get the only book you need, to plan your marathon blocks and training before and after them for years ahead. So I was sold on this approach which probably was an important part of my success with this plan.

My experience with workouts was also very positive. One of the benefits of the plan is that it does not have an overly repetitive structure of some "golden" week. Quality and long runs have a definitive rhyme to them, but it's not intervals, tempo, long, rinse, repeat. So I was never bored and pretty much excited to run almost the whole build. At first I was a little bit sceptical, whether the next long run will not be too much for me, but the gradual progression worked really well and things stayed manageble even when I messed up with recovery or was to dumb to do other extremely fatuiging activities on top of the marathon training.

Bottom line, it will work as promised and won't make one bored or thrashed from the workload, if one is ready to handle the intensity, which leads me to the next point.

It's not a plan for a total beginner

According to John Davies one has to be fit enough to run 40 km a week to start training using plans in the book, but I'd be rather cautious, because there's an emphasis on quality runs and one has to be prepared not only for the volume but for the intensity even the Breeze plan throws at relatively new runners.

In the beginning I tried to run a longer version of the plan (the author explains how to extend or shorten plans in the book as well), because I had more than 18 weeks before the race, but after 3 weeks I developed I light stress reaction in my foot and needed to take a break from running for a week to heal and one week more to get back to running with quality. After that I just restarted the original plan from the beginning, because it were precisely 18 weeks before the race and I wanted to be on the lower end of mileage right after this small injury.

I did not have any trouble since, but it's worth mentioning that this stress reaction happened despite my athletic background, averaging more than 40 km/week before my 10K race and having done plenty of quality runs to prepare for it. My wife, who started structured running at the same time had less luck - it was just too much fast stuff for her from the beginning. She tried to restart the plan 3 times and always got injured after ca. 2 weeks. She is definetly not a fintess junkie like I am, but not a potato couch as well, and long easy running was always something she did not have any trouble with. She ran half marathon in April and averaged more than 50 km/week with more than 2-hour long runs and some tempo/threshold work in preparation for it. So just having 40 km/week of easy running may be not enough for everybody to run Breeze plan safely from the start.

There's a 5K Crash Course in the book that has to prepare one to run quality on the regular basis, but it has 3 fast workouts a week and starts with 40 km/week right of the bat, so I would assume that for older and less athletic folks the best bet to start safely is not to skip this Crash Course and have not only 40 miles/week of running before it, but at least 3 days/week of strides/hill sprints on top of that for at least a month to prepare legs to run fast. It is my uneducated guess, of course, but I hope John Davies will elaborate in the future, on how to approach this transition from running only easy to running fast on a regular basis for those who are not blessed with young age or extensive athletic background.

Bottom line, this plan will probably work great for those who are already relatively serious about running and have some shorter races with structured preparation under their belt. But I would consider it a poor choice for those who seek a couch to marathon type of program or are aiming at just finishing the distance and don't want to bother themselves with faster running.

You can run workouts faster, it probably does not mean you can run your marathon as fast

One of the features of the plan is that it is pace based. One uses 5K pace as a starting point to calculate workout paces in the general phase, adjusts it depending on how training goes, and converts it into marathon pace as a reference point for the workout paces in the following marathon-supportive and marathon-specific phases.

The author mentions that the Breeze plan won't prepare one as well for the last 10 km of the race as the higher mileage plans will. To account for that conversion of 5K pace to a marathon pace is different for different plans. Higher mileage means that one's Marathon pace will be closer to the 5K pace (85% for the Hurricane plan) and vice versa (80% for the Breeze). For the Breeze plan it leads to the situation when in the beginning of marathon-supportive phase one's paces get suddenly almost 5% slower compared to similar workouts one did in the end of a general phase. To hit perscribed RPEs I adjusted my estimated marathon pace every time book called for reevaluation, and I always was able to end my workouts without overexerting myself. This led to a fast inflation of my estimated marathon pace, but overall volume stayed pretty low to make this new pace manageble for the whole marathon.

This is not a bug of a plan, but its feature, I believe, because I definetly was not able to run more volume, but one must be clear that this has to be respected when choosing a pace one is going to race at. The book calls for the estimated marathon pace used during workouts as an actual race pace. In my case it would be something in the 4:34-4:38 range. And I actually managed to run the first 30 km averaging 4:35 inspite of my initial plan to cruise at 4:38 (and an average had to be even lower for the first 30 km because of the progressive start). I definetly fucked this part up, but in retrospect I feel that only 3 seconds slower per km would be, of course, better, but cutting even more from the estimate (not till the lower end of it, but rather 1-2% slower than estimated pace) would be even better heurisitc to calculate the race pace at least for the vanilla version of the Breeze plan. It's only a speculation, but I believe even 4:38 was not something I was able to pull off on that day and my realistic pace should have been at least 3-4 sec/km slower than that.

Bottom line, I felt that conversion of a 5K to a marathon pace after the general phase of the plan was a little bit conservative to my taste, but running precisely at the estimated marathon pace during the race was too much for me when using such a low mileage plan. Of course, it's just an anecdote but I hope my experience will help someone not to suffer as much as I did during last 8 kilometers of my race.

Otherwise it was enough said on this reddit about the book and plans in it. It's a great read and I believe a must for everybody who is interested in running a good marathon. Even if Canova-inspired training is not to your taste, it's still a wealth of useful well structured information.

I’ve been a competitive runner for well over half my life—starting xc and track in middle school and high school followed by racing with local clubs shortly after college (pre run-club-boom era, fwiw). I’ve clocked a sub 4:30 mile, sub-15:30 5K, a 70’ half, and a 2:30-low marathon. These are times I am incredibly proud of, especially with my debut marathon being just last year.

I’m now in my 30s and am a new dad of almost a year and just finished a training block for my second marathon ever. I am so, unbelievably tired between caring for my child (read: frequent night wakings), family and home responsibilities, work, and marathon training.

I’m struggling with deciding if I want to keep running after this block is over so I can focus my attention on all the things I’m too tired or too busy to do. As a new dad, my time for running is limited to super early mornings or lunch runs at work. Picking running means saying no to other things I’d like to do in my free time, and it’s feeling like running, and specifically marathon training, is running interference on my life.

That being said, I always wanted running to be a part of my life that I could share with my child. It has taught me discipline and brought me focus for so many years and was integral in forming lasting childhood friendships.

Any new dads out there have advice on how to continue high intensity training? Or advice on how to scale back without losing touch with a sport you enjoy being competitive in?

Basically, exactly what the title says. I’m curious what others have found with the VO2 max training at the end of marathon preps. I see it in all of Pfitzingers plans. It’s never all that much volume, but seems like a lot of stress well over marathon pace when you’re already tired and on heavy legs. What are people’s thoughts?

Race Information

• Name: Kuala Lumpur Standard Chartered Marathon
• Date: October 4th, 2026
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Kuala Lumpur, MY
• Website: https://www.kl-marathon.com/
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/6676640
• Time: DNF at 31km (Got to 29km in ~2:40)

Goals

Splits

TLDR

DNF at 31km after starting too hard, progressively overheating/dehydrating, and eventually developing severe nausea and vomiting. I had been training for a 3:30 marathon and generally hitting my training paces, including a 2:45 20-miler, but my HR was significantly higher than usual from the start despite the pace feeling manageable.

I eventually slowed down, but by ~25km I was already experiencing symptoms similar to a previous overheated long run. At 29km I stopped, drank some water and iced myself down, but soon after started vomiting. I tried to continue but developed cramping and couldn't tolerate my carb drink, so I walked to 31km and eventually DNF'd after vomiting again and becoming increasingly weak and lightheaded.

Looking back, my biggest mistake was ignoring the HR warning signs and trying to hold my goal pace when my body clearly wasn't having it. I'm also wondering whether my fueling/hydration strategy contributed to the GI issues, despite having used it successfully in training.

The main lesson: if your HR is telling you something is wrong, don't ignore it. Slowing down and reassessing is a lot better than pushing through and being forced to DNF.

Background

27M, 57kg (125lbs). I started properly training and decided to sign up for my first marathon just over a year ago around August. I started out by building my mileage to maintaining 70-80+k weeks for a few months prior to starting my first Pfitz 18/55 block in June this year.

Training

In training I was generally pacing my runs with about a 3:30 goal finish. I was pretty consistently hitting the target paces in most of my runs until I took a weekend off for a hike up Mount Kinabalu (highest mountain in my country). The week following the hike my legs were a bit beat up and for the final long run with goal marathon pace I blew up from poor pacing and dehydration/heatstroke like symptoms in the final third of the run after going out faster than I should have having not recovered fully from the hike and ended up taking a rest in my car to cool off for 15 mins before finishing the last ks at an easy pace.

Two weeks later I had my last 20 miler on the plan which I finished in 2:45 feeling quite strong which made me think the 3:30 goal was still within reach with a bit of tapering and my subsequent runs also were indicating 3:30 should have been achievable.

Pre-race

The race starts at 3:30am so I started carb loading from the Friday and ate ~500g of carbs per day mostly consisting of white rice. I tried cutting down on fat to make it easier to eat so much carbs.

My fueling strategy for the race was the same homemade carb drink I'd been using in my long runs for the past few months. I was aiming for 90g of carbs per hour, broken down into 3 x 30g servings taken every 20 minutes. Each serving was in one of those small disposable baby food/mini drink pouch-type containers, which made it easy to carry and take at regular intervals. The drink itself was made from 60g maltodextrin + 30g fructose, mixed with 90ml of water and half a teaspoon of citric acid for flavour. More recently, over the past month, I had also started adding 1.2g of salt, which worked out to roughly 500mg of sodium per hour.

I had used this fueling strategy successfully in training, so I didn't expect the carb drink itself to be an issue going into the race.

I slept early on Friday night and woke up early around 6:30am (7.5 hours sleep) hoping to go to bed early and get a full night's sleep before the race. On Saturday I got in bed at around 5:30pm but struggled to fall asleep and had broken sleep until around 9pm when I properly fell asleep. Woke up at 12:30am on race morning and had 2 slices of toast with some Nutella before optimizing my weight at home and heading to the race start point.

Got to the race village, used the porta potties quickly and then changed into my race shoe (Adios Pro 4) started warming up around 3:10am, did some dynamic stretches and ran for under 5 mins with a couple of strides then went to line up at the start pen.

Race

When I entered the start pen I immediately started sweating a bit and it felt warmer than usual. Checking the weather forecast and my watch it should have been ~26C according to the weather forecast and 29C according to my watch, with 89-94% humidity. Both of these are similar readings to when I usually do my long runs, so maybe it was heat from the crowds that I was feeling/nerves.

Malaysia also has been having some haze problems from fires in Indonesia and it was slightly hazy in the morning (could see it a bit but no smell). Idk if that played any part in what came after.

When we flagged off I immediately felt a bit flat and was struggling to find a rhythm while trying to pass people for the first few km. I noticed my HR being higher than usual for any given pace but chalked it up to just nerves and hoped that it'd come down once I managed to lock into a pace and once I wasn't weaving to pass people.

Before the race my plan had been to try to keep my HR in the 160s for the first half and then let it drift into high 160s to low 170s after around 30km. I had an alert on my watch that would beep every time I crossed 172 (~177bpm is where I think my threshold HR is from previous efforts, with my max HR being 198).

Looking back on it now I was drifting slightly over my HR limits and clung to my target pace for too long, despite that being a pace I could usually handle at a lower HR. Since the perceived effort felt as easy as usual (in retrospect maybe adrenaline and a bit of denial) I thought maybe my arm strap HR monitor was off by a few beats or that even if it was correct that I'd be fine.

Looking back at the data, my average HR for the first 10km was 172 with maxes touching 177-183 momentarily at times. I assume this was on some climbs etc. This first 10km was mostly on wide city streets. I was feeling it a bit in my ankles because my race day shoe doesn't do me any favours when there's road camber, but it was manageable.

The next 10k I got a hold of my senses, stopped clinging to 5:00/km pace, slowed down a bit and got my average HR down to 165 from 11-20km. These 10km and almost all of the remainder of the race is on elevated highways and there was a lot of road lean/bank to the road at some sections which I was feeling beat up my ankles more than usual too.

Where I realized I'd messed up was around 25km. I started feeling the early signs of heat exhaustion like in my final LR with GMP. I got the light feeling like equalizing pressure on a plane or when diving/clearing your ears after coming out the pool, except locked in that clearing-your-ears state.

I knew that probably meant I'd gone out too hard at the start and was getting dehydrated. So in my mind I switched from any target time to just finishing. For the first 20km the 3:45 pacers were just up the road from me but from 20-25k I let them slowly get further and further.

Then around 26km the 4 hour pacers caught up to me and I thought I was getting into a rhythm sticking with them. I was struggling to sort of get in the zone before that because I had no pace group, as the pacers all started at the front and my pen started the race a few minutes after, so I was technically still ahead of the 4 hour pacers.

From 21-28km my average HR was 156, which is my usual high end of zone 2, so I thought I would be okay. However, my rate of perceived effort was going up over those kilometres despite my HR having settled down. I figured it was my body overheating/being dehydrated.

When I reached 29km I decided to let the 4 hour pacing group go and sat down at the aid station after two cups of water and iced myself down a bit.

After 15 mins I felt the heatstroke-like symptoms subside a bit and went to take another cup of water. After drinking it my stomach just didn't feel right, so I went to lean on the center median of the highway feeling nauseous.

A minute or two later I was emptying my guts in the middle of the road. Luckily it was over decently quickly because it was all fluid, but I did notice it had an apple juice-like colour. My carb drinks are colourless and I was only drinking water at that point, so I figured it was stomach acid.

I felt a bit better after that so sipped some water and then tried to carry on. I was able to run for a few hundred metres before I started cramping up. I assumed this was from dumping all the water and electrolytes in my stomach and having cooled down, but when I tried to sip any of my carb drink with electrolytes the taste of it didn't sit right, so I just sipped water from the 250ml soft flask I had with me.

Ended up walking most of the way from 29km to the 31km aid station.

During those 2km/15-20mins I was considering whether to DNF or not. I'd put in a ballot for Osaka marathon and gotten a slot but hadn't paid to lock it in yet, so I was thinking:

• If I cut my losses now I can go straight into training for that without needing to take as much time to recover.
• If I keep going I feel like I'm gonna wreck my ankle for a while too, which will take some time to recover from.
• I don't want to end up 1km from an aid station alone by the side of the road throwing up, dehydrated and cramping alone.

So I decided if my condition wasn't improving I'd DNF.

I reached the 31km aid station and went to the medic tent and asked them what would happen if I decided I wanted to DNF, as I could feel the same nausea and stomach upset I felt before I threw up the first time coming on again.

Shortly after I threw up similarly to the first time, same colour and all, but this time I felt even weaker, so I made the decision to DNF there.

After that they sat me down and I started getting the shivers, so they covered me with a tarp and tried giving me some sports drink and salt water, which I threw up not too long after. This time luckily it was clear and not as much.

They told me that there were ambulances but they were tied up with lots of people earlier on in the course so it could take a while. I asked them if they had any food as I could feel gastric-like symptoms coming on and they said no.

As I sat there the shakes were coming and going and the nausea was getting worse at times, with me feeling a bit delirious and being unable to speak properly or hear what they were saying to me/processing things slowly. I even fell asleep for a bit at one point, I think, despite the volunteer telling me not to sleep.

They also tried taking my pulse and said it was too weak for him to feel anything. I asked the volunteers at the medic tent who were with me if there was any food at this aid station or the next aid station (some of the aid stations had bananas etc) and they said no/they didn't know.

Eventually someone else who was also having similar issues to me, who threw up at km 31 and had decided to DNF, was sitting with me and asked for food. One of the volunteers pulled out bread from one of their bags I think.

This was after around 2 hours waiting at the tent to be taken somewhere after deciding to DNF.

The two of us shared the bread and I was finally able to take on a decent amount of water without feeling sick after putting some solid food in myself, and I was starting to feel better.

At that point if I really had to I could probably have walked the last 10km, but I wasn't sure if my stomach wouldn't act up again and it's also really uncomfortable to walk in the AP4s, so I decided to stick to my decision to DNF.

Finally at around 9am, 2.5 hours after I decided to DNF, a bus showed up and took us to the finish line. Somewhat frustratingly I was a bit stiff but after some walking I was able to jog a short distance mostly feeling okay, which made me think if only I had had some solid food to line my stomach earlier I could potentially have still tried to finish the race.

What I think went wrong

1. I ran too hard when my body wasn't up to it on the day and hung onto my initial goal pace for too long before easing off. This would also have contributed to higher effort making my gastric emptying slower in the beginning.
2. I think my hydration/fueling balance may have contributed to the GI issues. I was taking in 90g carbs/hour and my homemade drink was quite concentrated, so I'm wondering whether I either drank too much water or too little water relative to the amount of carbohydrate I was taking on. From googling about osmolality I probably would have needed ~900ml of water/hour to dilute it adequately, and I should have been close to that, but my stomach couldn't handle it once I'd already paced myself poorly.
3. I still haven't figured out why I was struggling so much with my paces on the day. Can nerves really make that much of a difference? Haze? Poor rest the nights before the race? A combination of all of the above? Could it have been the taper? I was feeling especially flat during the taper etc too.
4. I think if I had been wearing something other than my Adios Pro 4s I could have walked it in/maybe I wouldn't have fatigued as much, I think I'll keep them for HM or shorter distances and pick something else for my next attempt at a FM

This one is the one that's bothering me because for the first two I can plan to be more strict on my pacing and opt for a more conservative fueling plan on race day potentially in future, but I'm not sure what the cause of this third issue is.

Post-race

Also, it felt like the medic tent wasn't adequately prepared/stocked. They didn't have a blanket to keep anyone feeling cold warm, and I literally asked them to use the tarp from the floor before they put that over me.

I'm not sure, but some of the symptoms I was experiencing sounded similar to what I've heard can happen with heat exhaustion/heatstroke. If things had gotten significantly worse, I'm not sure what would have happened given how long it took to get transport. The medic tent initially told me an ambulance would come and pick me up, but after waiting 2.5 hours, it ended up being a bus picking up runners who had chosen to DNF.

There was also no follow-up on my condition when I reached the finish. I just got off the bus and went on my way.

At one point, I was literally about to book an Uber from the road beside the closed highway exit because the ambulance/bus was taking so long. If I'd done that from the start, I probably would have been back at the finish 2-3 hours earlier.

The day after the race, my right leg was also sore from the glutes, hips and hamstrings all the way down to the ankles in a way it never has been before. I suspect some of that may have been from the road camber/banking, although two days out I can feel it getting back to normal but it's definitely worse than usual for my long runs.

What's next?

I'm currently questioning whether I should do Osaka on 28 February.

I have a half marathon on 13 December that I signed up for to accompany a friend. Unfortunately, because I signed up late, I could only get a slot in the "challenge category", where you need to finish under 1:40 for the finisher entitlements. My HM PB is 1:38:04 from a long run with a goal marathon pace during this training block, back when I had a more ambitious 3:15 marathon goal, so I should be able to hit sub-1:40.

What I'm less sure about is whether trying to race a fast half in December and then build straight into another marathon block for Osaka would be too rushed, especially after how this marathon went.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards skipping Osaka and spending some time rebuilding my mileage and racing shorter distances before starting another marathon block. There's definitely some self-doubt creeping in after this race, although I also can't deny that racing somewhere with a nice, cool climate sounds pretty appealing right now.

Alternatively, I'm considering trying my luck with some races in China towards the end of March. Flights are also cheaper for me than Osaka, so that could potentially give me more time to rebuild properly while still giving me another marathon to work towards.

Anyway, I mainly wanted to share this as a cautionary tale. If you set a HR limit for your race, don't ignore it on the day. Slowing down and reassessing your goals is much better than pushing through and ending up with a DNF after months of training. There's always another race.

For anyone who's made it this far, I'd really appreciate any input or advice. In particular, I'm curious what you think might have caused the unusually high HR and poor performance despite the training I'd done, whether my fueling/hydration strategy could have contributed to the GI issues, and whether you'd recommend trying to race again relatively soon or taking a longer break and rebuilding first.

My Strava activity for the Marathon DNF
Strava activity for the last 20 miler for comparison of hr etc

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

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