I went home devastated. DNF’d my marathon today

Out of my 16 marathons, I would only claim about 6 as successful races where everything went as planned and I was able to finish strong. The marathon is hard when you are trying to race for a time goal, PR etc. There are just some days when the best training cycle of all time doesn't mean squat because you just don't have it. Whether you slog it in to get your medal and whatever post-race goodies there are or whether you DNF is really two side of the same coin. If DNF saves your legs for a quick turnaround, then it is worth it and may pay off. All of my PRs were either a winter race after a bad fall marathon or a spring marathon after a bad winter race. Sometime just taking the pressure off by having that DNF can make a big difference.

I can't tell if you're being serious. Erie is an annual event. It wasn't some one off Marathon Project opportunity.

Erie was humid and windy last year. Conditions were not ideal. Congrats on the PR in those conditions. Most people I know who ran finished minutes off of their expected goal pace last year.

I ran Erie this year and witnessed a lot of carnage. I suspect it was just humid enough to throw a lot of people off target.

I managed to have a decent race, but I went out slow because I figured the humidity could be an issue. I would not fault anyone who went for it and came up short. If you're looking to PR, drop and save your legs and fitness for another opportunity this fall.

Of course finishing is always ideal. However, in the marathon it can be counterproductive to simply finish and put the extra wear and tear on your legs when you can save it for another opportunity. OP got a decent long workout in and will be ready for his/her next marathon in a month.

You shouldn't be devastated. You knew you went too fast, you decided to give up halfway, and you quit rather than slug it out until the end. You could be embarrassed or ashamed, but you shouldn't be devastated - nothing happened to you but yourself.

Pride and arrogance

The logic laid out makes sense for marathon in terms of saving your legs but you will always know you quit and you will have that in your back pocket from now on. Sets a really bad precedent, better not happen again.

I had a combined goal for my first marathon: to finish and to break my very modest target of 3:30. Not very fast, I know! Although I trained specifically for 3:30, I hit the wall and did some walking in the last five miles. But I was determined to finish, and to beat my time goal, both of which I did. I felt like sh*t at the finish, but it was worth it!

Then, three years later, I came up sick just prior to the NYC Marathon, and I could hardly jog around the block two nights before the Sunday race. I didn't even know if I could finish. I had trained well for a 3:15, but I knew it would now be impossible to reach, so I decided to run very conservatively and to slap hands with spectators, while wearing a t-shirt with words that spectators repeated to encourage me. It was a blast, and I finished - slowly, but I finished, and I took that as a victory of sorts.

My running buddy, though not properly trained (but still with a heavy mile base in the books), beat me by ten minutes in my first marathon. He'd intended to run two loops of the three-loop course simply as a long run, then watch me finish. To his amazement, he felt good and so continued running all the way to the finish in the best marathon he ever ran.

He also ran Boston as a scab the next year, and he finished and was thrilled with the experience. However, just like in the race when he beat me, he didn't get a finisher's medal or certificate because he wasn't a registered runner. As a joke, I Photoshopped the time on the digital clock in the image of when I crossed the line in NYC, and I cut an hour off of the actual time. I then sent the doctored image to my friend. I don't take credit for what isn't really mine, so I immediately came clean, and we had a good laugh about it.

Even in races he'd trained for but still ran into problems like cramping (slowing him down considerably), he always finished. Dropping out would have worked for him, too.

Read a post on here years ago: If you want consistent splits and good pacing, run with a woman. They run evenly for the most part, while some men pace with their pecker...

sacrifices in your runs is a tactical decision. if dropping out is for the greater good for your running career, then it was the right choice. if it was bad and you decided to suffer for the next 10 miles, the damage would have been exponentially worse.

Quit running altogether and play pickle ball. No talent required. You’re a shoe in.

When did that happen?

It's 'shoo-in'

the ONLY times quitting is good for your career are:

-if you're a professional runner and you're not going to win, or

-if you're seriously injured and continuing would make it worse.

No hobbyjogger is saving their legs by dropping out at 15 miles. It'll save you about 3 days of recovery; it's not some heroic gesture of self-preservation.

"hurting" isn't injured. It just means you weren't willing to persevere. and now, in every marathon for the rest of your life, when it gets to the huting point, you're going to know you can quit, because you've done it before. The mental challenge in every race you ever run again just got that much harder, because you wouldn't tough it out for another hour.

2007

Perfect example really, when's the last time he finished a race?!

The first half is actually the first 200m. You need to go out at Superman pace so all the cameras and spectators focus on how fast you are.

Did you at least get a good half-marathon time through the first 13.1M?

Yes it was 800m to go. I thought it was earlier. He seemed to get confused about the laps. Dehydration.

I agree with the above. For most non-elites, the marathon is a tough grind from miles 18 or so. For the mid-packer to quit on non-optimal days means you'll finish about one in eight races at that distance. I've run 16 of them and only had three or four that I was really happy with. IMO it's important to learn how to deal with whatever sh-t show occurs in that last 10k, whether it be cramping, motivation, brain fog, dead legs, whatever.

I would not pull out of a marathon unless I was injured even if it meant taking walk breaks. If you run 20 marathons, you might have three-to-five that really feel great, and even those will include plenty of moments of "ugh" in them. It's just the nature of the race.

Not sure. I wasn’t sure when I was going to drop so I tried to maintain what I thought was marathon pace. I haven’t seen my half time yet (I’m not in results) and I’m still processing the disappointment. I knew wherever I finished, I’d still have to lug it back to hotel on foot. So ideally mile 15 was smart to drop. If I slugged it out to mile 20, there would be no reason to drop because the return back to hotel was longer than 26 miles.

i think the half time was decent, but if I knew I was going to drop, I probably would have picked up the pace at 10 of slowing down.