How do the last few miles of a well executed marathon feel

It feels like you're doing everything you can to hang on. It's painful. Legs want to give out. Slight hills feel like mountains. A breeze could knock you over.

Hurts and feels oh so good.

They don't, you are just in the zone and feel the end is near.

Depends...

But I have run much worse splits and survived.

What follows is pointless self analysis about what ya coulda, woulda, shoulda run with perfect splits.

The truth is, not much faster.

I've also run perfect splits from beginning to end and everything in between.

Lots of people have run worse splits and survived, and I’m glad you’ve run different splits.

But in the given example, even if the runner thought he was in 3:05 shape and was targeting 3:05, the only way he can hang on beyond 20 miles in the way described above is if it turns out that he was fit enough to have run faster than 3:05. And that experience of those splits is what reveals that information about the fitness.

The Daniels' formula doth project too much methinks.

This, for me. I've only run one marathon out of seven where I finished well. I had to let some guys go early on who were 'banking time' for the second-half hills. I'm not a patient person by nature, so this was difficult, but I had a good idea what my real fitness was and repeatedly had experienced what happens if you get even a little too optimistic. By the time the biggest hills were done, three or four miles from the finish, I let myself start really pushing. I was shocked to find my legs actually respond. I wasn't going much quicker, but it felt like redlining, like I could go no faster, but somehow wasn't slowing, step after step, block after block. I made myself not think about it, but just focus on the next guy ahead who had gone out too hard for his fitness. It was really only the last .2 where I started to realize my legs might give out at any second. Finished exhausted, satisfied, and feeling like I'd finally cracked some kind of code.

The way you guys have described it makes me want to keep on trying marathons until I get it. I'm racing Mesa and hoping to be in 2:55 shape, workouts and 10k races indicate is as well as those things can, and I do have a half marathon PR that I think I could replicate in similar conditions that says I could, I just hope I actually pull it off on race day

I'm at a pretty similar fitness level (just ran a 2:58 a few months ago in Toronto in pretty warm weather), so maybe I'll chime in.

I think for me, closing a good marathon feels a lot like "I know and believe that I can do it, but my legs are telling me I can't and that makes me innately worried." I end up picking up the pace ever so slightly (5s/mi ish) in the last 2ish miles to "get it over with before I blow up", even though I know in my head that I have enough 70+mi weeks not to be worried. I think being able to do that is a good sign.

My bad races have usually been due to muscle cramps (warm weather or going out too fast), so I haven't experienced any other mode of failure haha. I think if you feel like it's physically impossible to speed up, then you're probably close to a blowup? I don't think it usually makes sense to speed up if you're on target, but it feels good to be able to.

Good luck! 2:55 is an impressive goal and level :)

Well Mesa is downhill so if you run 2:55 you're probably only in 3:00 shape

2:55 at Mesa is worth about 2:57 at Chicago according to findmymarathon. So it does make a difference, but it's not crazy massive.

In my experience, the majority of a "well executed" marathon rests in fueling. If you don't fuel enough you will bonk every time and feel like you OP has in the past in the last 10K. If you fuel well, marathon pace is "slow" enough that while very uncomfortable, I wouldn't call it horribly painful. It's more the fear that I might run out of gas that puts the fear in me in the last 6-8 miles of a marathon, not the pain.

My legs do get beat up to the point where a kick for the final .2 probably isn't much faster than 10K pace, if that, though. More of a push than a kick that final 800 or so.

out of 20 marathons the last few miles of a marathon always feel bad, its just whether your driving and feel abd or your dying and feel bad

If you are pushing hard, they feel terrible. But the key is that you are not slowing down too much. What makes a marathon hard is not just running 26.2 miles, but to run them at a good pace.

It hurts. But you're not sure if you will ever have this chance again. So you find more. You wring out every ounce of juice from your being.

In my best marathon (2:28-high, 10s negative split), without about 5k to go, I stopped feeling like "this is starting to feel unsustainable and that's a huge problem" to "this is not at all sustainable, but it doesn't have to be." As another poster mentioned, aerobically it felt much more like the last mile of a 5k when your whole body is just screaming for oxygen. Mentally, I was completely f**ked. I knew I should recognize where I was, but I didn't. Nothing made any sense spatially, nothing looked right. I don't remember much from the last mile, but I do remember asking the guy on the lead bike to tell me like his favorite color and about his kids or something, just anything to distract myself from how terrible everything felt and how badly I wanted to stop running. Hitting the wall feels really bad, but the silver lining is that you're no longer capable of making yourself hurt as badly as maintaining your pace will.

I like the way everyone at the top of the thread described it. I would say in the marathon you know you've gotten it right when you get past 20-22 miles & you still have legs. You're running as fast as you can without getting to the point where your whole body starts to cramp/seize up. In my good marathons, I've hit my target #'s & have felt full (enough) of run in the later stages, but if I cross that line for a second my body tells me that I'm already at my limit & need to stay in control. When I try picking it up at mile 24 or 25 & get a shot down one of my legs telling me you're gonna cramp if you overdo it from here to the finish, I know I can't do anything more. It hurts but you recognize where that line is & give it everything you have to maintain to the finish. When you execute a good marathon, usually you're passing people & you can try to tune out some of that pain late & try to push one last time. My best executed Boston was in 2018 in the garbage weather year. I was 6:18 pace @ 40k & ran sub-6 pace to the finish. Calves/quads were ready to burst at the finish. My best marathons have been my best fueled marathons as well.

Since your body knows it will be done soon, just wants to be done now.

So it will hurt. But focus on breathing keep pushing yourself to hold a strong pace. Fight the urge to go all out, but just keep a strong surging effort until the end.

My last marathon I didn't even look at my watch the last couple miles and just keep pushing harder with the feeling of a few seconds faster per km the last 5 or so. It will feel like you're going all out by the last km.

I've hit a few PRs in Chicago, but when I ran in the mid 2:30s in my 40s I seriously though my legs were wobbling going up that "massive mf of a climb" on E Roosevelt just before the finish, and again after regaining the feeling, felt buttery legs within the last 50m but it came together.

Nailed a massive PR, and was fine walking after but that moment I'll always remember.