What Does it Feel Like to RACE a Marathon?

for me, it goes something like this:

miles 1-7: feels like a training run. the hard part is running so slowly.

miles 7-13 - bit of a strain - nothing serious but have to work at it a bit

miles 13-18 - strain increases - some races are ruined here. key is to relax and flow and not speed up when you have a good period. (you'll have good and bad times - important not to listen to them. Just stay on pace.

miles 18-22 - hardest miles - you are rapidly running out of energy and start to sag

miles 22-26: will depend on your fitness and mental strength - some people will have hit the wall and crawl in - but if you can tell yourself that all you have left is 4 miles and a 4 mile run is freaking NOTHING, that can help.

That's not RACING, it's time trialling.

1 -> 13 incredibly sometimes it feels as easy as your long runs

13 -> 22 feels like a tempo

22 -> 26 hard work

Thanks for clarifying that your sub-15 was a D1 time.

you never get it wrote:

That's not RACING, it's time trialling.

well ok

but a marathon is different than other races because you have to hold back so much for so long.

it is clearly something like a time trial for 15-20 miles - you are holding back, holding back, holding back. Then you race the last 45 minutes to an hour.

Just thinking about this - Someone like Kimetto - say he could run a mile in 4 flat. His marathon pace is only 40 seconds per mile slower than that.

I can barely run 5 miles at 40 seconds slower than my best 1 mile race.

amazing stuff.

2:40 is 6:06 pace. As long as the course isn't really hilly try to run mile to mile, just looking to hit the next mile marker at 6:06.

First 10-13 miles will probably be easy, the next ten or so will feel like work, but the last 3-5 will feel like death.

Whatever you do don't try to bank any time early. A negative split or even pace is what worked best for me.

Thanks to everyone that posted they're actual experiences. Of course theirs the typical unconstructive responses, because it wouldn't be an average Letsrun thread without them.

I mentioned I ran in college and a rough 5k time to give everyone an idea of my background. If I was trying to brag I would have listed my actual time or mentioned that my slowest 5K in college started with a 14.

For everyone's fun, I included some obvious grammer and spelling misteaks so that we can get the token grammar police replies as well.

Yep, Your write the grammer police are surely trawlin,' lookin' for there next victim that donot measure up to they're standards.

Must admit...their our times the grammar used does drive me crazy.

Find a group or a partner to race with. Its easy to end up in no man's land. 5:50s with a group is ten times easier than 6:00 alone. Run on feel. Be loose thru 13 then start making decisions. I've run pretty much all of my marathons hitting halfway between 1:14-16 and finished anywhere between 2:32 to 2:47. Ive run 8 marathons. You will slow down and at some point the marathon creep will get you. Aim for sub 6:00. Get in a groove clicking away 5:55, 5:58, 5:56, 6:01...find that rythem.

Alan

agip wrote:

Just thinking about this - Someone like Kimetto - say he could run a mile in 4 flat. His marathon pace is only 40 seconds per mile slower than that.

I can barely run 5 miles at 40 seconds slower than my best 1 mile race.

amazing stuff.

Your attempt of thinking is what is amazing stuff. Do you think a 10 minute miler should be able to run a marathon just 40 seconds slower than his mile pace?

For a 5 minute miler the difference between Kimetto's imagined 4:00 pace and 4:40 pace corresponds to the difference between 5:00 and 6:05 pace, not 5:00 and 5:40 pace. It doesn't make sense to add seconds. You convert it to mph and subtract the same difference from both mile paces. It's not perfect, but it's the best first approximation you can do as velocity is roughly approximate to VO2 use and heart rate.

4:00 = 15 mph

4:40 = 12.86 mph

diff: 2.14 mph

5:00 = 12 mph

12 mph - 2.14 mph = 9.86 mph

9.86 mph = 6:05

20 mile tempo, 6 mile race. Don't be afraid to plan for a negative split.

ok but it doesn't change anything - I could never run a marathon at 6:05 pace - Maybe I could do it at 6:36 pace. On a great day.

at your 6:05 pace, I could probably do 12 miles. or maybe 13. no more than that. But he can do 26 at that pace. is that not amazing?

So your point about the math is right, but my point about elite's amazing ability to hold fast paces for hours is still correct.

It's hard, man. Especially for me around the 33-35 k mark, I still tend to feel good, try moving harder and then fall apart at 40k. The issue is when you lose it, you lose it fast! Good luck with your goal, just try to keep your head. It might have been Steve Jones or some other elite that once said something along the lines of go easy until 18 miles, wait 2 more, then wait 2 more then go. I think this about sums it up.

Assuming this is a troll, and I really think it is, this is one of the best I've seen on letsrun.

If by racing a marathon you mean trying to place as highly as possible, you need to gauge what you're doing against what your competitors are doing. Say you're hoping for a top 10 finish. You have to measure what maybe 10-20 other runners are doing and decide if you want to hang with them or if you think they're running too hard and that your best hope is to hang back a bit and pick them off as they die.

If you mean going for as fast a time as you can manage, you need to figure out what sort of effort or pace is the fastest one you can hold for the entire distance and try to do it. I always found that trying to run to a particular pace was usually disasterous, but I had a good sense of what effort level I could hold for over two hours was. That may be because I did a of of my training at my marathon pace so marathons for me were a lot like 17-20 mile runs that just lasted longer than 17-20 miles. We also had lots of opportunities to race in the 15-20 mile range, something that's almost impossible to do anymore which is a huge loss because if you finished a 20 mile race feeling like there was a little bit more in the tank but not very much, you kind of knew how hard to run in your marathon.

I would do some 15-20 mile time trials and try to finish them as fast as you can but with that feeling of having a little more but not much more in the tank and then running at about the same pace in my marathon.

OP

I have run 25 marathons. Some good, some horrible. It really all comes down to preparation. I have found in hindsight, that it is like anything else in life, such as a test, whether it be math, history, and even a race. Did you do your homework (so to speak)? Are you prepared? Did you do the work necessary to be confident ? We all know what it's like to see a test laid in front of you in school, that you have serious doubts about your preparation. There are many that have that same feeling just before a marathon. The difference is that some feel fit from their training and know that they have run a solid 22 miler with a strong finish within 12 days, and some that know they have not run further than 15 miles and have doubts about their fitness, and of those, some will feel confident, some will not. This can play on you at 'that' point. I'm talking about 'That point' when you could or can have self doubt when the energy begins to run low. If you are prepared you know that feeling and you have experienced it, so you are ready for it, and power through. If you have not, and are not really prepared, then you have no one to blame but yourself.

Not to sound like the boy scouts or a cliché, but do your homework, your preparation and BE PREPARED.

.

Miles 1-10: this is too easy.

Miles 10-18: this is about right.

Miles 18-22: this is too hard.

Miles 22-26: why am I doing this? is the finish ever going to get here?

I am probably not the best example since I am not natural long distance type. The best way to explain it is to break it down in to phases.

1. The first couple of miles (3-5) felt uncomfortably slow, sort of like doing a recovery run when you feel like running hard.

2. Mile 5 to about the half way point felt really good, soft of like a basic training run.

3. Mile 13-18 is when I started to focus and had to work to stay on pace. Sort of like the last couple of miles of a long training run.

4. Mile 18-22 is when the realization hits you that you are in a long a$$ race and for me this when I start to struggle. By mile 22, I am racing, focusing on my goal, trying to get to the finish like just like in any other distance, but in this case I have an entire 5K to go.

5. Mile 22-24 in all but one or two of marathons, I am on running on fumes, my runner's gate has switch to a shuffle, I am in pain and just trying to hold it together.

6. in the last half mile or so I am still in pain, but I can hear the crowds and know the is near finish, I feel the excitement and I'm usually able to move at a slightly faster shuffle.

That's pretty much it, I have only had one, maybe two marathons were I felt like an athlete/competitor at the end, by body usually breaks down around mile 22 and it is a slow painful slog to get to the finish line...the pain is pretty bad. It's not like one hard punch to the head like the intensity of finishing an 800m, but more like a dozen punches to the gut. The best marathon I ever ran was when I was unregistered and was supposed to be pacing a friend to the half and then to 18 miles and decided to keep going. This is the experience of a late-30s family man trying to run sub-3 off of 50mph with most of my long runs between 10-15 miles and one 20 miler.

Consult previous results. Find out roughly where 2:40 will place you. That time will get you top 10 or even top 5 in a lot of smaller marathons. So when 30 guys go out ahead of you and you are running 6:00 pace, don't get pulled out too fast. Those guys will come back to you. My last marathon was a 2:40 with a 1:50 negative split. Moved from 25th to 10th in the second half. If it is a bigger race, you should have some company to work with you and help with the pace.