Running partner and I both turn 42 this year which is the # of km in a marathon. Her birthday is this week. She is awesome and told me 1) we were running a marathon for her birthday 2) that I could do it in under 4 hours (she’s also the one who told me I could do a 1/2 in under 2). I’m bragging because I’ve worked really hard over the last year to get to this point. To put this time into perspective, 11 minutes faster and it would be a Boston Marathon qualifying time. My only other marathon was in 2014 and I got 4:29. So I’m 6 years older and cut 38 minutes off my time. Also I ran the entire time. No walking. Paul said I was so fast he almost missed me at the finish line!
So how did I manage to run a sub 4 marathon?
First, I trained my ass off. I restarted my running career last spring when I joined a trail running class. I then joined 3 running groups. I have run a minimum of 5k per day since last September. Once a week I do a longer run, once a week I do a speed workout-either trying to beat my 5k time or up to 10-12km with period of speed running and recovery. My longest run before this marathon was 36km about a month ago, then 2 weeks ago, we tested the route with a 30k run.
Also, we set everything up so we could be as successful as possible.
1) Our route wasn't super hilly and included different surfaces.
We mapped out a route from one of our houses that starts up a hard hill, but then slopes down a long hill out to an old railroad trail. The trail is firm and wide so we could run apart from each other side by side and have something besides pavement under our feet for the entire 42km. We did an out and back on the trail almost the entire length (entire length is 6km each way, we went 5.75, which means we had a street crossing that acted as our turn around spot) TWICE then took a different route back to the house that didn't go uphill as drastically (don't worry, there were still some very gentle up and downs) then ended up at another old railroad trail near the end. Really there was only one hard road/highway crossing. We got lucky in the morning heading out, I got lucky on the way back, then went back for my running partner to push the walk button to make sure she could cross without stopping.
2) We were flexible on day and time.
We kept an eye on the weather. We'd originally looked at Thursday this week but Tuesday ended up looking much better weather-wise. (High of 7 degrees C). Because we didn't have a start time to be at the start line we slept in and woke up with no alarm then texted to figure out when to start (we started shortly after 8am).
3) Ease of the morning.
We got to avoid porta potty line ups, we got to eat breakfast and take some time to digest and it didn't have to be portable. We got dressed in a calm manner not at 5am in a panic and remembered everything: fuel, water, ibuprofen, anti-chafe rub, etc.
4) I had a plan. We'd already tested the route two weeks ago for our last long run (traditional marathon training says to do a long run 2 weeks before your race, then taper, or decrease, the mileage until the race day). We ran the to and from the trail and one loop of it using a Garmin watch (I've got the Vivoactive 3 with Music-I LOVE it so much). You can look at your runs and look at the times for each lap/km. I put them in a spreadsheet and matched it up to a map of our run that showed elevation and figured out where we could shave a few minutes here and there off to get 42km just under 4 hours (I figured I'd somehow sprint the last .2, forgetting the last 2.2km of a marathon are the hardest!!!)
There's a feature where you can program a workout that I've been using for speed workouts. I programmed in each km (I set for 10km on the trail out and back as it would be the same elevation and surface the whole time) the pace I wanted and told the watch I wanted to run X km at a pace between 0.1minutes/km and the pace I was hoping for. This meant the watch wouldn't vibrate if I went faster (which is a concern if you are pacing for a long distance, but I've run enough long runs I felt I would know if I was "too fast") than my desired pace, but it would vibrate if I was going slower than my intended pace. I'm happy to say that it only vibrated a total of 4-5 times during the entire run. Knowing each kilometre I was at or below my pace gave me the confidence to keep going.
Below is the information I used. First section was the data from our 30k run, second section is my goal paces that I programmed into the watch third section was actual. I felt this was much better planning than picking an average pace and trying to keep it no matter the elevation or obstacles (I added a few seconds into some sections for street/light crossings). The last column is how many seconds faster (or slower if negative) I was than my goal.
| secs faster | |||||||||||
| 30k actual | Under 4 marathon goal | under 4 marathon actual | #### | ||||||||
| 1 | 5 | 51 | 1 | 5 | 45 | 1 | 5 | 14 | 31 | ||
| 2 | 5 | 45 | 2 | 5 | 45 | 2 | 5 | 30 | 15 | ||
| 3 | 5 | 13 | 3 | 5 | 20 | 3 | 4 | 58 | 22 | ||
| 4 | 5 | 40 | 4 | 5 | 30 | 4 | 5 | 26 | 4 | ||
| 5 | 5 | 46 | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 15 | 10 | ||
| 6 | 5 | 36 | 6 | 5 | 20 | 6 | 5 | 11 | 9 | ||
| 7 | 5 | 46 | 7 | 5 | 35 | 7 | 5 | 23 | 12 | ||
| 8 | 5 | 49 | 8 | 5 | 25 | 8 | 5 | 17 | 8 | ||
| 9 | 5 | 46 | 9 | 5 | 40 | trail | 9 | 5 | 27 | 13 | |
| 10 | 5 | 27 | 10 | 5 | 35 | 10 | 5 | 17 | 18 | ||
| 11 | 5 | 40 | 11 | 5 | 35 | 11 | 5 | 37 | -2 | ||
| 12 | 5 | 26 | 12 | 5 | 35 | 12 | 5 | 35 | 0 | ||
| 13 | 5 | 55 | 13 | 5 | 35 | 13 | 5 | 50 | -15 | ||
| 14 | 6 | 0 | 14 | 5 | 35 | 14 | 5 | 25 | 10 | ||
| 15 | 5 | 45 | 15 | 5 | 35 | 15 | 5 | 41 | -6 | ||
| 16 | 5 | 42 | 16 | 5 | 35 | 16 | 5 | 34 | 1 | ||
| 17 | 5 | 43 | 17 | 5 | 35 | 17 | 5 | 30 | 5 | ||
| 18 | 5 | 39 | 18 | 5 | 35 | 18 | 5 | 36 | -1 | ||
| 19 | 5 | 38 | 19 | 5 | 35 | 19 | 5 | 24 | 11 | ||
| 20 | 5 | 45 | 20 | 5 | 40 | trail | 20 | 5 | 34 | 6 | |
| 21 | 6 | 11 | 21 | 5 | 40 | 21 | 5 | 29 | 11 | ||
| 22 | 5 | 31 | 22 | 5 | 35 | 22 | 5 | 23 | 12 | ||
| 23 | 5 | 31 | 23 | 5 | 35 | 23 | 5 | 25 | 10 | ||
| 24 | 5 | 45 | 24 | 5 | 35 | 24 | 5 | 29 | 6 | ||
| 25 | 5 | 45 | 25 | 5 | 35 | 25 | 5 | 32 | 3 | ||
| 26 | 6 | 12 | 26 | 5 | 35 | 26 | 5 | 36 | -1 | ||
| 27 | 5 | 57 | 27 | 5 | 35 | 27 | 5 | 37 | -2 | ||
| 28 | 5 | 44 | 28 | 5 | 35 | 28 | 5 | 34 | 1 | ||
| 29 | 5 | 28 | 29 | 5 | 35 | 29 | 5 | 47 | -12 | ||
| 30 | 5 | 29 | 30 | 5 | 35 | 30 | 5 | 34 | 1 | ||
| 31 | 5 | 1 | 31 | 5 | 35 | 31 | 5 | 42 | -7 | ||
| 32 | 32 | 5 | 40 | 32 | 5 | 41 | -1 | ||||
| 33 | 33 | 5 | 40 | 33 | 5 | 24 | 16 | ||||
| 34 | 34 | 5 | 45 | 34 | 5 | 32 | 13 | ||||
| 35 | 35 | 5 | 45 | 35 | 5 | 27 | 18 | ||||
| 36 | 36 | 5 | 35 | 36 | 5 | 28 | 7 | ||||
| 37 | 37 | 5 | 45 | 37 | 5 | 30 | 15 | ||||
| 38 | 38 | 5 | 45 | 38 | 5 | 22 | 23 | ||||
| 39 | 39 | 5 | 45 | 39 | 5 | 24 | 21 | ||||
| 40 | 40 | 5 | 40 | 40 | 5 | 35 | 5 | ||||
| 41 | 41 | 5 | 50 | 41 | 5 | 38 | 12 | ||||
| 42 | 42 | 5 | 50 | 42 | 5 | 16 | 34 | ||||
| 158 | 1106 | 210 | 1545 | 0.2 | 1 | 12 | |||||
| 18.43 | 18.4 | 25.75 | 25.75 | 210 | 1281 | ||||||
| 176.4 | 235.8 | 21.35 | 21.35 | ||||||||
| 2.941 | 3.929 | 231.4 | |||||||||
| 3.856 | |||||||||||
| 3 | 51.35 | ||||||||||
Overall I felt it went very well! I would have been perfectly happy with a 3:59 so I'm THRILLED with my 3:51 :)
