I ran that day and to be honest found it pretty reasonable
Actually clocked a 8 minute PB
Any runner worth their salt would've built in a period of acclimation, just in case.
I just ran 4 long runs in 3/4 hooded tops just incase this happened, one every other week, topping out at 22 miles
I found it quite easy on the day.
Excellent approach and an even better execution.
I ran my first marathon last fall at the TSC Toronto Waterfront in very similar conditions as London this year. Started warm at 15C, rose to 22C, high humidity, no shelter from the direct sun. Completely blew up and missed my goal time by 13 minutes.
I knew a week leading up to it that it was going to be potentially very warm for that time of year(Oct.20 in Canada). Made zero adjustments to my goal time or race strategy. Instead, I went out too fast for my 5k/10k/15k splits and ended up coming through the first half 3 minutes ahead of pace. At 35km I hit the wall. Lost my mental edge and jog/walked in the last 7km
After sulking and blaming the race day temperature for about a month, I went back and did a deep dive on my race day data. Heart rate was well above what I had trained for, especially early on for the race. Power data showed I kept attacking every hill and elevation grade. Ran the first 30km with ego and no patience.
Did an even deeper dive into my training and got completely honest with myself. I looked at the 4 weeks leading up to my taper(did the Pfitz 18/55), and my fitness showed I would be redlining my goal time in perfect conditions.
From the looks of it, a lot of people ran very well in London. Quite a few even ran their lifetime best by a large margin. Everything I've seen on letsrun and youtube/social media, where people blew up similar to how I did in Toronto; 10-20 minutes off their declared goal time. Those people refused to adjust and ran with ego.
Your tip about training in a hoodie is brilliant. The next one I'm running is in November and I'm going to apply that to some of my key workouts in September/October as the morning temperatures cool off. Over dress for the conditions to increase perceived effort and exhaustion. Also going to run 3-5 seconds faster than my goal marathon pace in training to account for any uncontrollable variables during the actual race.
"From the looks of it a lot of people ran very well"... any evidence for that whatsoever? You'll no doubt trot out the same 2-3 names as everyone else (from a field of 56k) and completely ignore the anecdotal evidence of all the vast majority of people who were actually there and have shared their experiences here.
My HR was fine for the whole marathon, and I ran a decent time but with a sizeable positive split. And, guess what, I found the conditions tougher than most of the 10+ marathons I've run in all over the world. And I saw SO MANY PEOPLE suffering in the heat - unlike you I didn't just assume they're idiots, poorly trained and just deserved it. I assumed they may be more affected by the heat than me. Because people ARE impacted differently by it. Other people have already made that point effectively enough.
Training for a goal pace that's 3-5 seconds quicker than your actual target is such a basic approach, I'm not sure you realise how patronising and condescending you're being. Regardless, if I were you I'd start running all your key workouts wrapped in a duvet and a bin liner to really maximise your adaption. Imagine how much more sanctimonious you'll be able to be then!
I ran my first marathon last fall at the TSC Toronto Waterfront in very similar conditions as London this year. Started warm at 15C, rose to 22C, high humidity, no shelter from the direct sun. Completely blew up and missed my goal time by 13 minutes.
I knew a week leading up to it that it was going to be potentially very warm for that time of year(Oct.20 in Canada). Made zero adjustments to my goal time or race strategy. Instead, I went out too fast for my 5k/10k/15k splits and ended up coming through the first half 3 minutes ahead of pace. At 35km I hit the wall. Lost my mental edge and jog/walked in the last 7km
After sulking and blaming the race day temperature for about a month, I went back and did a deep dive on my race day data. Heart rate was well above what I had trained for, especially early on for the race. Power data showed I kept attacking every hill and elevation grade. Ran the first 30km with ego and no patience.
Did an even deeper dive into my training and got completely honest with myself. I looked at the 4 weeks leading up to my taper(did the Pfitz 18/55), and my fitness showed I would be redlining my goal time in perfect conditions.
From the looks of it, a lot of people ran very well in London. Quite a few even ran their lifetime best by a large margin. Everything I've seen on letsrun and youtube/social media, where people blew up similar to how I did in Toronto; 10-20 minutes off their declared goal time. Those people refused to adjust and ran with ego.
Your tip about training in a hoodie is brilliant. The next one I'm running is in November and I'm going to apply that to some of my key workouts in September/October as the morning temperatures cool off. Over dress for the conditions to increase perceived effort and exhaustion. Also going to run 3-5 seconds faster than my goal marathon pace in training to account for any uncontrollable variables during the actual race.
"From the looks of it a lot of people ran very well"... any evidence for that whatsoever? You'll no doubt trot out the same 2-3 names as everyone else (from a field of 56k) and completely ignore the anecdotal evidence of all the vast majority of people who were actually there and have shared their experiences here.
My HR was fine for the whole marathon, and I ran a decent time but with a sizeable positive split. And, guess what, I found the conditions tougher than most of the 10+ marathons I've run in all over the world. And I saw SO MANY PEOPLE suffering in the heat - unlike you I didn't just assume they're idiots, poorly trained and just deserved it. I assumed they may be more affected by the heat than me. Because people ARE impacted differently by it. Other people have already made that point effectively enough.
Training for a goal pace that's 3-5 seconds quicker than your actual target is such a basic approach, I'm not sure you realise how patronising and condescending you're being. Regardless, if I were you I'd start running all your key workouts wrapped in a duvet and a bin liner to really maximise your adaption. Imagine how much more sanctimonious you'll be able to be then!
There’s actually loads of evidence. It’s on Strava. Here is how you find it - pick at random any person you can think of that moaned about the heat that day as an excuse for their blowup(think 10-25 minutes over their stated goal time), go to their Strava, then click on the option to see all the people they ran with that day. Strava will give you anywhere from 40-80 additional profiles to click through. You’ll see TONS of people with badges for a marathon PR. And this applies to anyone who ran sub 2:30/3:00/3:30/4:00. It’s incredible to see the amount of even splits posted on Strava too. If you only took the shoetubers content at face value, you would think they were the only ones who fought through the end to get the results that they did.
I don’t doubt that you and many others suffered on Sunday while running a marathon. Regardless of heart rate or pace, I wholly believe that you and possibly 56k other people also suffered regardless of training, experience, talent, or fitness. Even those that DNF’d probably suffered a lot too. I just believe the immensity of the suffering would have occurred regardless of Sundays temperatures being 5-8C above what could have been ideal.
you seem to have a weird bone to pick with me for simply sharing my first ever marathon experience a few months ago. I admitted to mistakes I personally made in training and in race day, and it took me far too long afterwards to admit to myself that my arbitrary time goal was always out of reach. What I said was far from patronizing, both in intent and application. I will take your advice though and wrap myself in a duvet and bin liner when going out for a jog. There are thousands of professional athletes in various sports over the years that have adopted this exact training and found incredible success - boxers, footballers(American AND europeans), basketball players, BPN sponsored hybrid athletes. etc. WHOS GONNA CARRY THE BOATS!!!!!