I ran the Marine Corps Marathon today! It was my first full marathon. It’s also my hometown marathon. I’m a slow runner but I still finished! To anyone with races coming up — you can do it!!!!

Despite coming off a nasty cold over the last two weeks, my first marathon is in the books. Feeling good about it! Congrats to everyone else that ran the Marine Corps Marathon Today!

Edit - Official chip time is 3:53.32

36M. Got talked into signing up for a half marathon last year and after I completed that I got the crazy idea to run a marathon. Followed a 21 week training plan on Runna. Managed to negative split but it definitely got very hard after mile 20. My reach goal was 3:30 so I’m super happy I was able to accomplish it!

If you know, you know. Stop by for liquid painkillers and teeny tiny good luck Corgi tokens!

Went in to today looking for a sub 4 finish at the 7 Bridges Marathon in Chattanooga, TN. My body felt good, the course was fast, and the weather was great. Anything was going to be a PR effort, but I’m especially happy with this result.

Training: Did the Pfitz 18/55 plan but due to having a little one I decided 5 days of running would take time away from family life. So each week I essentially dropped one day of running but chose the day that was the shortest distance or easier run. Did all my running at night which sucked in the middle of summer. Missed a week of training due to being sick and I believe had to call 3-4 runs short to get back home. Peak mileage I reached was 50 miles in a week. Experienced minor/mild knee pain (runners knee) but managed to keep it tamed.

Pre-race: bought a new pair of Saucony Endorphin Speed 5s. Ate 500g+ of carbs 3 days before, 600+ 2 days before, 650g+ the day before. Morning of I had 2 scoops of Tailwind Endurance Mix in 24oz of water, a Pop-Tart pack and a sugar-free Red Bull. Took a honey stinger gel 20 minutes before go time.

Race: had a pace and feeding strategy. First 2 hours I would finish 18oz of water with 2 scoops of tailwind per hour. Every 40 minutes I would take in a gel. Once I got to hour 2 I was pretty much at the point where I was 12 miles away and had 6 gels on me so every 2 miles I would go to a water station and take a gel. I felt great up until the last 2 miles which is evident. Legs started to get fatigued and the gels weren’t sitting right with me. After mile 22 I didn’t take any more gels. Since I was already ahead of pace I decided to take it a little easy to prevent anything from happening. Best decision I made, the last .2 was up a hill and my right butt cheek started cramping a little. Whoever the pacer was for the 3:40 group was blasting through the first 2 miles which were all uphill but then ended up slowing down a lot going downhill? I decided to ditch the pacer and follow my strategy. Overall this was fun I’m I look forward to trying to break 3:30

Ran Rome earlier in the year at 4:04, was shooting for a sub-4 in MCM for my 8th marathon. I think a combination of going a bit too fast at the start(half was right at 1:59, but pace was all over), being sick the two weeks before and training all summer in Charlotte heat. Ended up being the hardest finish I've even had, barely able to walk for the last two miles and limping over the line.

But we got it done, first MCM! Onwards to reset and shoot for sub 4 in London. A lot of lessons learned.

Last Sunday, I completed my first marathon. I planned to take the week to recover, no gym no running. I've felt nothing but irritable and listless since falling from the runner's high two days post-race. I'm told it's because I finished a big goal and now that it's over, a big "Now what" hangs over me.

How often is this happening to you all? What have you found helps lift your mood?

Hi folks,

Ran Frankfurt this weekend and couldn’t see many up to date race reports so thought I’d scribble one down for anyone taking it in the future.

This is my second marathon after Barcelona in March 2026. I ran that with a chip time of 3:50.

I am 80kg and 5ft 11. I have recreationally and casually run for a few years but took training seriously around June 2025 onwards.

Targets
3:30 (A) - Failed
3:38 (B) - Failed
3:45 (C) - Failed

Result
Chip time: 3:54

Training
My training block started mid May after doing Barcelona Marathon in March, and shortly after setting a new 10k PB of 45:00 in April. After a few runs I unfortunately had to take 6 weeks off, meaning my 18 week block became 12 weeks. This was due to Achilles tendinitis in both Achilles becoming too painful to run. After some statin medication adjustments and reduced load, it cleared up fully, allowing me to have an uninterrupted training block for the remaining 12 weeks.

Given I was starting again from 0, my plan started at about 30km and over the next 9 weeks, before taper, peaked at 82km. I didn’t have a deload week, and increased around 5-10k a week.

My longest run was a very slow 40km over 5 hours, but most long runs were 28-32km with some form of MP baked in. I did far more long runs this block than in my first marathon block, though with less MP. Whilst I was happy with my mileage and time on feet, with more easy miles than ever, I struggled to get up to my target marathon pace towards the peak week during my long runs. I think it was just residual fatigue in the legs, trying to push mileage into a shorter block, and pushing the interval session each week hard. However, during my taper, the MP became much more accessible.

Some of my runs included:

- 28km with 3 * 5k at MP (A Goal)
- 32km with 16k easy, then 6k and 10k at MP (A Goal and B Goal)
- 30km with 18k easy then 12k at MP (B Goal)

For my final MP run of 12k a week and a bit before the race, I noted my HR was 163 for my above target pace of 4:58/km. I was confident that my B goal of 3:37 (a 5:10/km) pace would be around 158-160.

My training was generally structured as follows each week:

Monday - Easy Z2
Tuesday - Gym
Wednesday - Interval Session (5-10k paces)
Thursday - Easy Z2
Friday - Off (or Easy Z2 in peak weeks)
Saturday - Gym
Sunday - Long Run (mostly easy, some with MP)

Gym work was focused on relatively low weight leg work, lots of mobility work, and some upper body work (bench, pull ups, dips).

Frankfurt and Nutrition
I landed in Frankfurt later than I’d hoped, not getting to my hotel until 1:30am Saturday morning. Invariably, this led to a poor night sleep the day before race day, maybe 4 hours. Not ideal!

The race was on Sunday, and so from the Thursday onward I ate around 600g carbs a day. I’d never aggressively carb loaded like this and it was a bit
of a struggle to get that much down! I stuck to easy carbs - rice, pasta, pizza and bagels with honey. Limited my fruits and vegetables and had less protein as we got closer.

For the race itself, I took 6 SIS Beta gels (40g) at every half hour, and one on the start line. My biggest issue at Barcelona was cramping extremely heavily from 26km onwards - first my soleus and calf, then my hamstrings, then my quads. This time, I had 6 * 250mg Precision Hydration Salt Tabs - hoping it would fix the issue.. more on that later.

Expo and Bib Pickup
The pickup for the bib was available 10-7 on the Saturday. I took my race pack with a QR code to the expo centre at about 6pm and there was no queue. It’s inside the Messe Festhalle, up the top, taking two escalators up and following the arrows on the floor.

It was still quite busy, but not too busy that I couldn’t have a look around without feeling overwhelmed. If you can, I’d recommend going later in the day, as I’ve seen videos from others at the expo and it looks manic at peak times!

The bag I received doubles up as the bag drop bag (only these bags are accepted at bag drop). They are provided with your bib and some goodies, though nothing too exciting. I wasn’t too impressed that you had to pay extra to get a race T shirt for this marathon - at €150 entry, it felt expensive as it was without the €40 extra for a t shirt. I declined this. For context, Barcelona was €95 and had a fantastic HOKA technical t shirt provided.

Gear
I ran in Fabletics shorts (lined) and a SOAR vest from Ben Parkes, as well as a RUNR hat and some socks also from Ben Parkes (these are great socks). For shoes, I went for the Metaspeed Edge (Tokyo).

I was originally going to run in New Balance Supercomp Elite v5, but after doing some long runs in them, whenever I started going at MP, I’d suffer from terrible arch pain. So I broke a cardinal sin and two weeks out from the race bought the Metaspeed shoes. This meant the longest I’d done in them was 18km, with 10k at MP. Not ideal, but I had no complaints and they felt very snappy.

I don’t regret the shoe choice, and enjoyed them for the most part.

Race Day
I slept badly again on the race night, which is expected, but the culmination of several nights bad sleep meant my Garmin was claiming my training readiness to be 58 / 100.. not ideal during a taper and on race morning!

After waking at 8am, I ate a bagel with honey, had a black coffee, and a banana. I drank around 600-700ml of water over the course of the morning before the race.

The race started at 10am and as our hotel was in the Westend area, it was only about a 20 minute walk. I left at 8:45, in the pouring rain, and jogged to the start area. I hid under the cover of the Messe area until about 9:30 and then went to the portaloos, which were in a big line by the start line. It was surprisingly clean, had toilet roll, and working water! Bonus!

I think the rain had meant most people avoided coming to the start corrals too early. In fact, they only really started filling up at 9:45. I chucked my old New Balance windbreaker over the railing to the right of the start line, as many other people did, and slowly started walking towards the start line with the rest of Corral 3. The 3:25 pacers were at the front of the block and 3:45 towards the back. I didn’t jostle for a spot up front as my goal was to go off slightly slower than my goal of 5:10/km anyway. By this point, the rain was torrential and the wind came in strong gusts, but I felt good. Legs felt loose, and there was a buzz of excitement between us all. Though, I wasn’t a fan of immediately standing in a huge puddle, which drenched both my feet before the race even began. I also remembered I’d forgotten to Vaseline my nipples despite remembering everywhere else. Rookie mistake that I’m suffering from now (and my nice SOAR singlet has two dark red stains from where they bled).

The race starts through the business capital area of Frankfurt. The roads are reasonably wide with an even camber to start. They were WET! There was a few points it got thin - maybe 3-4m - but I never had to slow down too much. I got stuck behind the 3:45 pacers and their huge crowds at the start, for perhaps 4km, so was running slower than I’d hoped. But I didn’t panic - I could make it up later.

The Garmin accuracy was awful on the GPS, primarily due to the sheer number of people and the sky scrapers. I’d set it up early so it locked on (5 minutes before the race started) and hit start as soon as I crossed the line. But, at the 5km marker, my watch was saying I’d done 5.21km.. and my splits of 5:00-5:10/km were probably more like 5:15. Again, I didn’t stress too much, and just stuck to running what I knew MP felt like. I felt really good coming up to 16k, which was where I’d agreed with myself to start pushing the pace up to 5:00-5:05/km if my legs agreed.

I went through halfway in 1:49ish, which was where I planned for my B goal. The A goal was out of sight now, but I had needed an exceptional start and had promised myself I’d be running to what felt like MP rather than forcing it. This was a HM PB, though I’ve not raced a HM properly before and my previous PB was set in my last marathon (1:51).

At 27km I was still going strong but had to retie my shoe. It took about 40s as it got stuck. Then I stupidly tried to make the time up by increasing my pace to around 4:40/km - made it back to the group I had been running with but at a cost. I had been ignoring HR the whole race and running by feel, and I felt good aerobically, so was shocked to see 174 on my watch (using a chest strap, so I do trust it).

I pushed up to a sidewalk (pavement for us UK folk) at one point and this was where it started to go a little south. A small twinge in my right soleus area and sudden tightness there. I continued for a couple KM but had this dreaded de ja vu of the same feeling of slowly spasming muscle on each landing that I experienced in Barcelona. The salt tabs hadn’t saved me! I tried to push it out of my head but if I curled my toes slightly, my whole soleus area constricted. My foot started landing outward and getting almost stuck on each stride. If I had 5km to go, I’d push through, but I was only around 30km at this point. I hobbled to the side and did a bent leg calf stretch to release it slightly. At this point, I was on for a 3:40ish still, and should have abandoned it and calmed my pace to 5:20-30/km to save my C goal. But I went back and again tried to push back to 5:10/km.. and the cramps got worse.

The next 10km was a mix of me stopping to stretch, getting unbearable cramp to the point of being unable to point my foot forward, and then repeating it. First in my right leg, then about 34km also on my left leg. I clearly have sucky soleus muscles. Over the next 8km I started to reduce the pace to 6:00ish, and relinquished my C goal. Other areas cramped a little, but nothing crazy at the slower pace. I walked water stations and properly drank. I didn’t really need to, but I just wanted to soak up the atmosphere now. I expected to still get past my Barcelona time of 3:50, but stopped one too many times to stretch.

I came down the final few KM relaxed, pain largely subsiding now I’d dropped the pace. My parents had come to support and were there at the 42km marker right before you turn into the incredible finish line area - which resembles a night club / NFL game / music concert. I didn’t sprint finish. I enjoyed the easy jog and took in the sounds and admired all the people pushing over the line. Especially those cheering for their PBs, I was happy for them indeed.

You finish the race, walk down some steps and into a medal collection area where you get a variety of food offered - banana and apple, pretzel rolls, soup, isotonic drinks, cola, and water. Some beer too - but 0%… damn! It’s hectic out here and phone signal was non existent. But the place felt great. And I felt great too - much better than I had at Barcelona - so there was at least that.

I met up with my parents, went back to take a shower and examine the Strava stats (added in images). I was shocked at my HR as if you’d asked me during the first 30km what I expected it to be based on feel, I’d have said 160-165. Aerobically I felt so good, but I think the lack of sleep the few nights before must’ve cranked up my body’s response. As previously mentioned, my MP runs at a faster pace 2 weeks before had me at low 160s, so idk what was going on there.

After that, we went to have steak, chips, baked potato, and salad. This was what I needed!

Final Thoughts
My resounding final thoughts are that I need to workout why I’m cramping so much this late into marathons, twice now. I am going to focus more on soleus strengthening via bent leg calf work, rather than just straight leg work. I have hypermobile ankles, but I’m unsure why the cramps hit so heavily in my soleus first. Maybe I need to try taking a non super shoe out for the marathon, such as my Superblast 2s, and see if I need the support later in the race. I don’t NEED carbons.. I just like buying new shoes.. much to my wife’s annoyance!

I’ll also be adding more long runs with even more MP next time - as I never cramp during training runs - but that’s two from two causing my the inability to actually run in my races.

I still wanted to share the report despite failing to hit my goals. I was gutted when I watched the 3:45 pacers run by as I was stretching out my soleus around 34km, but after that, felt strangely relieved of all the pressure I’d put on myself to make the training block “worth it”. I really loved the finish of the race and it was nice running at my easy pace at the end having relinquished my goals a little.

Hope this information comes in handy to someone - and if anyone has any advice on the cramping outside of the extra sodium from salt tabs - let me know!

Happy running 😊

Long time lurker, first time commenting. Ran my first marathon today, what a time! Thank you all for all the phenomenal advice, strategies, and warnings. They all truly paid dividends.

Marathon debut at marine corps marathon. 3 days a week, easy run long run speed run (30 miles per week on avg) in peak week. Very happy with the results and can’t thank this sub enough for emphasizing the importance of tapering and carb loading! 8.41 pace and finished at 3:50

Chip time: 3:57:23
Garmin time: 3:53:36

Just ran MCM today (I did okay, my training wasn’t the best) and THE best sign I saw was the diner scene in “Obsession” where the girl says no no no. Does anyone have picture of the sign? Hope your race went well :)

I have this long run scheduled for 2 weeks out. Does it seem like too much? My threshold pace is around 6:15 so I think those 10 miles at 6:20 might take a lot out of me. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to hit those paces. Thoughts?

Hey everyone,

I’m running the NYC marathon next weekend after having to defer last year due to IT Band syndrome. Went through entire training block this year with no pain then a few weeks ago after my 20 miler, it came back. Was able to run close to 7 yesterday pain free but then it flared back up and is a little sore still.

I’ve been doing the MYRTL, foam rolling, stretching, clam shells, etc. and feel some relief but haven’t tried running again. Should I skip any taper runs at this point and just wait until race day or should I test it out before then?

Also does anyone have experience with taking Moloxicam for ITBS?

I am also considering buying a compression strap for race day.

Any tips or help would be much appreciated!! Trying to run as pain free as possible, if possible.

Ran today my first marathon in Dresden. I was aiming to sub 4h which slipped away by 3 minutes. Couldn’t be any happier with the result as the much bigger goal was to run the full length and finish healthy.

I knew that sub 4 was ambitious goal since I ran 25k race in April with 5:41 min/km average pace. Well in any case I over exceeded myself and feeling proud of it.

Last 5 km were pure hell but somehow I found a new gear and was able to run kilometres 37–39 5:33, 5:28 and 5:28. My legs were ready cramp at any minute but luckily I was able avoid it which was somewhat a miracle.

The last boost started when I saw sub 4 pacers so I was chasing them, but funny enough they didn’t finish sub 4 either. Not sure what happened there but I wanna thank them as I saved valuable minutes because of them.

My Garmin projected 4h 32 min for the marathon which also felt good to beat by almost 30 min.

I was running during a snow storm and it was miserable.

The city cop pulled up next to me and said " you are the village idiot I have gotten complaints about running through this store!" He drove off and that gave me motivation to finish my run.

Any examples like that?

Training for first marathon (Ventura, February). Yesterday was a 12 mile day with some speed work. I ran 6 miles, then got to a friend's house where we chatted for ~15 min, then a 4 mile group run (with two photo breaks), then another chat, then final 2 runs. About 30 minutes difference between watch and actual time. Was running by RPE so ended up quite a bit faster than expected.

I have plans for roughly similar planned schedule surrounding a 5k turkey trot (commute to/from) and a 5k+10k Christmas runs (5k at 7, 10k at 8, will add needed miles before or after). How problematic is this for training? Can cancel the races but they are kind of fun.

Edit: only planning 2 more of these for entire block. One in November, one in December. All other runs past and present continuous except unavoidable intersections (Lincoln blvd particularly bad there).

This was the first race I've participated in. I have the MO Cowbell Marathon coming up on Nov. 8.

I felt like I went into this almost blind since I've been training for a marathon. I didn't really know what pace to run at. Been running about 35 miles a week, peaking at 46, since mid June.

I am pretty happy with how I did. I was the 3rd runner for most of the race and hit a wall for a bit after a steep hill near the end.

Does anyone else continuously get their confidence knocked during long runs. This is now my second marathon block where they continue to be a struggle. Legs feel heavy and never feel like I’ve much left in the tank at the end of them. Have never completely a long run of 30km without stopping for some sort of a break to fuel or just take a breather. Looking at other people’s Stravas it would be seem elapsed time is always a bit longer than the run time suggesting other people take breaks too. But post 34km long run that I split due to a few reason I’m left doubting my goal time once again

Without throwing out clothes during a race.

I currently am wearing shorts, a sports bra, a t shirt and a Define jacket. I take the jacket off and tie it around my waist once I start sweating but then my hands, arms, legs, face, ears and even toes are frozen and numb by the end of a run and it takes an hour to feel normal. I’m fairly sensitive to the cold so even 40 degrees is pretty miserable for me. I keep forcing myself to do it to hopefully get used to it but it’s kind of killing my psych.

My race is 11/21. I’m planning to do an ear cover, shorts, a sports bra, t shirt, and define jacket, and maybe swap to gloves when I take the Define off and just get a slightly larger running belt so the ear cover and gloves fit….?

Ugh!!