Please, somebody put me out of my misery and tell what I’m doing wrong in the marathon.

Late Fades wrote:

I had the same issue as you for my first three marathons. I was hitting a wall right around 16-19 miles in each of my three races. Weather was the primary factor, but I could have salvaged the races if I paid closer attention to my body in the early miles.

A better training plan (a lot more hill work, doubles on workout days (easy recovery run (3-5 miles) + workout (it adds some weekly volume, but I also think doubles on workout days helps improve strength/fatigue resistance without pushing the body crazy hard)), taking easy days EASY with hard days HARD), core work three times a week + strength two times a week, and monitoring HR during the race helped me overcome the late marathon fades. I stopped focusing exclusively on pace and ran based on what my body was telling me. I use a HR monitor during the race to keep myself honest. I'm not married to the data, but I use it to ensure I'm not overcooking with HR spikes, or running too hard too soon, etc.

After monitoring HR during workouts and long runs I became adept at figuring out exactly how hard I can push my HR at certain points in the workout before I run into issues, which translates to where I should be at various points in the marathon. (I run workouts based on pace unless my HR tells me it's too ambitious.) I go into the marathon with a fairly good idea of what I'm capable of running, but let my body dictate pace during the race.

Using HR can be slightly conservative and I may leave seconds on the table in some marathons, but it's more effective than hitting a wall and losing minutes.

A final thought is that pace groups can be helpful, but they can also interfere with what you're trying to accomplish. They tend to be massive groups, where you have to pay close attention to tripping, etc. While the pacer tends to be fairly consistent, the runners in the group often spend a ton of energy navigating within the group and failing to run anything close to the tangents. Water stations in the group are often a nightmare, where runners have to slow way down while people are darting in and out, and then speed up to get back to the group. A lot of wasted energy. Also, if you're married to the pace group you often ignore issues that can be worked out before they result in bonks.

Not Pro Marathoner wrote:

Mileage and Long Runs got me an adequate marathon time of 3:17 in rainy conditions.

I averaged 48 miles a week and my two longest runs in the build up were 22 miles. I also had two 20 milers and an 18 miler as well. Safe to say, I was ready to cover the distance. In one of the long runs, I cut down from 8:30 pace to 6:40 pace. And with my long runs averaging 8:05 pace, I knew that 7:30-something would be a wise choice and I could safely push hard the last couple of miles if I needed to.

My race felt effortless. I took 4 gels, all 40-45 minutes a part and hit most water stations.

I would say that a semi-decent runner needs to have his/her mileage be an average of 60mpw if you want to sniff 3:10 and 70mpw+ to get that sub-3. This is purely anecdotal evidence and observation from talking with other runners.

Agree100% wrote:

As is typical in these threads, every runner will give you what worked for them, but we're all a little different. For every runner who has trained and hit their goals at the marathon, there exist dozens who never did in spite of best efforts.

My race times match with OP pretty closely. 19:30 5K, 39:20 10K, 1:26 HM, good performances (for an average Joe) at odd 10 milers and such, but the best I ever mustered, in 15 marathons, was 3:15 on a net downhill course. And that was an all-out effort, barely qualifying for Boston while feeling like I was on fire to get to the finish line with seconds to spare. Barely qualifying for Boston was my absolute peak, and that time wouldn't sniff a spot at Boston anymore.

I always used Daniels plans for my best efforts, although I suspect that I didn't run enough 20+ milers, because he advocated for limiting long runs to 2.5 hours for most runners if I remember correctly. Otherwise, I hit paces and distances religiously and peaked at 90+ mile weeks several times during these plans.

I have mostly gotten past the fact that while I LOVE the marathon, I'm just not that good at it. I run in the vast flow of mid packers out there, doing my best, and love it. It's possible that my body, in some way, and many runners' bodies, in some way, are just not well suited to covering 26.2 miles fast. I can run them with little drama anymore, which is nice in itself, but the good relative performance? Nope.

The most relevant bit of all of this might be that for the OP, and for others including me, if we wanted to compete against our age group, we'd focus on the shorter stuff. I don't care anymore and love the challenge of the never-quite-perfect marathon effort, so I accept that I'm a mid packer.

wdude wrote:

SucksAtMarathons wrote:

Ran my third marathon yesterday and in every single one I’ve blown up at 30-33km. Whereas in the first two the problem seemed fairly obvious (1st poor training; 2nd poor pacing in warm windy conditions) Yesterday in Berlin was just baffling. I trained well. An 18 week plan with 7 long runs with plenty of marathon pace effort in them, 2x36kms runs, workouts on Tues/Thurs, 80km-110km a week. HM PB this year of 1:26, 10km in 39:09.

My goal yesterday was to run 3:15. I posted in here prior to the race and was told this was a conservative but sensible goal - and I agreed. As we saw from Kipchoge’s incredible run, the conditions were perfect. I also paced myself perfectly for the first 21km, going through halfway in 1:37:21 and feeling good. Nutrition was perfect, gel at the start and every 6km during. So why, why oh why, did I fall to pieces again at 31km? Pace slipping slowly to 5:20kms, losing over 10minutes in the last 10km to finish in 3:25. It didn’t feel like I was bonking, my legs just went. I had no strength. The 3:15 group sailed off into the distance. Naturally, from that point on, it was pure torture. I finished only as a point of pride.

So here I am again. The day after another poor marathon searching for answers. This time I’m lost. Do I need to up my strength game in the gym or with more hills? Was my 18 week plan too long and I was overtrained? Was my race week too stressful (very stressful week at work, HRV dropped like a stone for the 5 days prior)? Did I just have a bad day? Or do I just suck at marathons?

All advice and insults welcome!

If it makes you feel better, you weren't the only one. I went through the half at just under 1:35 and finished in 3:23:xx. I was trying to figure out what went wrong as this was the best block of training I ever had. I hit my workouts, I was running 60 miles per week and I felt I was able to run 3:05-3:10. Maybe I overestimated my abilities but my issue yesterday was hamstring spasms which started at mile 18.

I am a big dude at 6'6 200 and my body runs abnormally hot. I was pouring cups of water on my head from the very beginning and even ditched my singlet at the half. I did not think the conditions were that great. One thing I noticed was there were no electrolytes on the course yesterday. The Maurten 160 mix has 1 gram of salt in a serving which by no means is enough to replace what is lost during a marathon. Especially for a heavy sweater like myself. I think it's a rookie mistake on my part that I didn't have salt pills or electrolytes but medical on at mile 22 did not have anything and that's unacceptable when you are a WMM race. I was lucky that a guy who came up to me had salt tablets and heard me asking around. It's too bad that it took me 3 miles to get something in my system but alas it is what it is. I shuffled across the line and collapsed afterwards and was taken into medical but am doing better now. I was really hopeful for a huge breakthrough yesterday and it didn't happen. Just curious did you bonk or did you cramp up. I don't feel like I bonked, I simply couldn't run for more than 400m before I seized up.

It was an incredible race to be part of with Kipchoge shattering his own WR and my fitness gained from this summer isn't going anywhere.

My advice - find a cold marathon and let er' rip. If you are anything like me, you will find yourself able to push harder in the later stages when you don't require as much fuel and timing of gels etc.

jecht wrote:

wdude wrote:

If it makes you feel better, you weren't the only one. I went through the half at just under 1:35 and finished in 3:23:xx. I was trying to figure out what went wrong as this was the best block of training I ever had. I hit my workouts, I was running 60 miles per week and I felt I was able to run 3:05-3:10. Maybe I overestimated my abilities but my issue yesterday was hamstring spasms which started at mile 18.

I am a big dude at 6'6 200 and my body runs abnormally hot. I was pouring cups of water on my head from the very beginning and even ditched my singlet at the half. I did not think the conditions were that great. One thing I noticed was there were no electrolytes on the course yesterday. The Maurten 160 mix has 1 gram of salt in a serving which by no means is enough to replace what is lost during a marathon. Especially for a heavy sweater like myself. I think it's a rookie mistake on my part that I didn't have salt pills or electrolytes but medical on at mile 22 did not have anything and that's unacceptable when you are a WMM race. I was lucky that a guy who came up to me had salt tablets and heard me asking around. It's too bad that it took me 3 miles to get something in my system but alas it is what it is. I shuffled across the line and collapsed afterwards and was taken into medical but am doing better now. I was really hopeful for a huge breakthrough yesterday and it didn't happen. Just curious did you bonk or did you cramp up. I don't feel like I bonked, I simply couldn't run for more than 400m before I seized up.

It was an incredible race to be part of with Kipchoge shattering his own WR and my fitness gained from this summer isn't going anywhere.

My advice - find a cold marathon and let er' rip. If you are anything like me, you will find yourself able to push harder in the later stages when you don't require as much fuel and timing of gels etc.

Another useful post. I love Gu gels and Maurtens don't sit well with me. Did you ever use Honey Stingers wdude?

jecht wrote:

wdude wrote:

If it makes you feel better, you weren't the only one. I went through the half at just under 1:35 and finished in 3:23:xx. I was trying to figure out what went wrong as this was the best block of training I ever had. I hit my workouts, I was running 60 miles per week and I felt I was able to run 3:05-3:10. Maybe I overestimated my abilities but my issue yesterday was hamstring spasms which started at mile 18.

I am a big dude at 6'6 200 and my body runs abnormally hot. I was pouring cups of water on my head from the very beginning and even ditched my singlet at the half. I did not think the conditions were that great. One thing I noticed was there were no electrolytes on the course yesterday. The Maurten 160 mix has 1 gram of salt in a serving which by no means is enough to replace what is lost during a marathon. Especially for a heavy sweater like myself. I think it's a rookie mistake on my part that I didn't have salt pills or electrolytes but medical on at mile 22 did not have anything and that's unacceptable when you are a WMM race. I was lucky that a guy who came up to me had salt tablets and heard me asking around. It's too bad that it took me 3 miles to get something in my system but alas it is what it is. I shuffled across the line and collapsed afterwards and was taken into medical but am doing better now. I was really hopeful for a huge breakthrough yesterday and it didn't happen. Just curious did you bonk or did you cramp up. I don't feel like I bonked, I simply couldn't run for more than 400m before I seized up.

It was an incredible race to be part of with Kipchoge shattering his own WR and my fitness gained from this summer isn't going anywhere.

My advice - find a cold marathon and let er' rip. If you are anything like me, you will find yourself able to push harder in the later stages when you don't require as much fuel and timing of gels etc.

Another useful post. I love Gu gels and Maurtens don't sit well with me. Did you ever use Honey Stingers wdude?

George 2:41 wrote:

I've run 137 official marathons and another 50+ races from 50k to 100 miles. I've run the same pace on the last 5 miles of my 50 mile PR as my first 5 miles that day (6:40/mile), finished under 6 hours as I had predicted and was under 3 hours at the marathon split. I was the Coach of the biggest community adult running club in California for 28+ years. Women's teams I have coached have won the Team Championship at Boston 3x in the Open and 2x in the Master's and the National Championship in the Open Marathon ....I have also lectured Sport Psychology internationally (I am a Ph.d. in Cognitive Experimental Psychology). I have permanently damaged lungs from the secondary smoke of my parents smoking, so my fastest 400m ever was only 72 seconds, yet I have run 2:41 for the marathon and 1:16 for the half-marathon. I wrote the chapter on "Training for the Ultra-Marathon" for one of the Runner's World general training books (edited by Hal Hidden).

How much do you weigh, this is also important as bigger runners NEED to run even more distance and longer distance strength building base runs. Train like a Kenyan, at least as much as your real world allows. I regularly was able to run 100+ mile weeks and up to a 10 week preparation for the WS 100 of 180 mile weeks! I was under 130 pounds at 5'9" at that time.

Long Runs....two 30 milers/50k in the 3 months before your goal marathon event. Base LONG runs on pavement 28 miles. Ideally with easy "out" and "race effort" back (Negative Split) with full race effort the last 5 miles.

Speed work....TEMPO runs of around 10 miles at faster than marathon planned pace.

Shorter speed sessions 3-4 x 2 miles at significantly faster than planned marathon pace

Ideally all "speed sessions" should be the 2nd workout of the day with a morning 6-9 mile comfortable pace session. Never do your "speed sessions" of FRESH legs. The marathon is NOT ABOUT THE FIRST 15K, but what you are ready and prepared to do over the last 10k. It is so mentally rewarding to be STRONG ENOUGH to be passing people over that last 6 miles rather than the opposite mental impact of others "sucking your energy" as YOU ARE GETTING PASSED.

SucksAtMarathons wrote:

chen wrote:

How long was your taper? And what's your taper weeks look like?

Also what's your pace and how did you feel for the 2x36km runs?

4 weeks out: Only 1 workout during the week due to a HM the week before. Did 2x6km at 10sec faster than goal pace on Thursday; 32km at 4:51 per km (7:48ish a mile) on the Sunday. 102km total.

3 weeks out: Tuesday 10x1600 @105% MP; Thursday 10k track race (39:29); Sunday 24k w/4x5km @ MP. 87km total.

2 weeks out: Tuesday 15mins diagonals; Thursday 4x1600 @10k (avg 6:15); Sunday easy 19k. 68km total.

Race week: All easy, apart from 5k at MP on the Wednesday. 68km total incl. the race.

The pace for my first 36km was easy, 5:20 per k (8:34); 2nd 36km I did was a workout session of 7km>6km>5km>4km>3km>2km w/1k float, increasing the pace from just slower than MP to faster than MP, last 2km in that session was a struggling but I managed to hold MP.