Thanks, Brojos. Thanks, LRC members. LetsRun helped me make my dreams a reality.

Congratulations! I can't believe you knocked nearly an hour off your time. What year was your first marathon? Trying to get a full grasp on your progression.

??? - 3:21:57

2012 - 3:00:27

2018 - 2:25:17

Wish I had your progression. My first marathon was a lot faster than yours (3:03) but I only got my lifetime best down to 2:51. Lots of races between 2:53 and 2:58.

Any plans on trying to hit the Trials standard?

Way to go, GB!! Awesome run. You give all us basement dwelling hobbyjoggers hope that one day we will see the light!

Congratulations and thanks for a nice story! There aren't a lot of truly positive stories on here--thanks for adding yours.

Has anyone checked the race photos to make sure this guy is legit?

Dur wrote:

These are the heart warming stories I come to LRC.

So happy you have a girl and had sex with her at least once.

Couldn't agree more.

Congrats!

And those questioning, he won the Grand Rapids marathon and you can look up some of his race results on Athlinks.

Proof that LR is the only drug you need

Dreams becoming Reality wrote:

Congratulations! I can't believe you knocked nearly an hour off your time. What year was your first marathon? Trying to get a full grasp on your progression.

??? - 3:21:57

2012 - 3:00:27

2018 - 2:25:17

Wish I had your progression. My first marathon was a lot faster than yours (3:03) but I only got my lifetime best down to 2:51. Lots of races between 2:53 and 2:58.

Any plans on trying to hit the Trials standard?

Thanks for all of the support, everyone!

As for my progression, it looks like this. I have 9 “career” marathons.

October 2010 - 3:21:57

April 2012 - 3:00:27

September 2012 - 2:48:12

April 2013 - 2:44:16

October 2013 - 2:39:39

2014-2015: Did not run much. Got married, started my career, started coaching, etc

October 2016 - 2:41:14

May 2017 - 2:30:39

October 2017 - 2:38:xx (GI issues and I basically gave up; I honestly haven’t ever looked up results)

Spring 2018 - no race due to birth of my son

October 2018 - 2:25:17

I am definitely hoping for the trials, but understand that it’s far-fetched. It is a lot less far-fetched today than it was on Saturday though. So, I am just going to keep dreaming!

Congrats. I'm on my honeymoon and shared the first post with my wife. Jon Gault emailed it out. Made us both smile. The dreams become reality part of letsrun I love but forget about a lot. Running has taught me a lot about life. And then I see the post below and had to laugh.

Truly inspirational wrote:

Dur wrote:

These are the heart warming stories I come to LRC.

So happy you have a girl and had sex with her at least once.

Couldn't agree more.

wejo wrote:

Congrats.

I'm on my honeymoon and shared the first post with my wife. Jon Gault emailed it out. Made us both smile. The dreams become reality part of letsrun I love but forget about a lot. Running has taught me a lot about life.

And then I see the post below and had to laugh.

Truly inspirational wrote:

Couldn't agree more.

Thanks, Wejo and congrats on the wedding! The post you quoted made me laugh as well. Running has also taught me a lot about life and about myself. Most importantly, it’s helped me to become proud of who I am and has made me push myself in everything that I do.

Cheers!

Increible! Grandisimo!

Wowzers wrote:

Congrats!

And those questioning, he won the Grand Rapids marathon and you can look up some of his race results on Athlinks.

I ran this yesterday and he was looking smooth when he blew by me on the looooong out and back. Congrats GB awesome work and on the new kiddo!

You guys are missing the KEY point of this thread (and the other one about getting the CR) - this guy just trained for a 2:25 marathon, running 100-110 mpw DURING THE FIRST 5 MONTHS OF HIS SON'S LIFE. Either this guy's wife is a SAINT or he has the easiest baby ever known to mankind - in which case his wife is still a SAINT. I'm still not sure I believe it actually......

Congrats on a great time.

What background did you have in running when you ran your first marathon and what were your shorter distance PRs?

HahaRiiiiiiight wrote:

You guys are missing the KEY point of this thread (and the other one about getting the CR) - this guy just trained for a 2:25 marathon, running 100-110 mpw DURING THE FIRST 5 MONTHS OF HIS SON'S LIFE. Either this guy's wife is a SAINT or he has the easiest baby ever known to mankind - in which case his wife is still a SAINT. I'm still not sure I believe it actually......

Haha - it was a combination of things. First and foremost, my wife is a SAINT. No doubt about it. Other factors include the fact that I am a teacher/coach so even though I was taking 9 credit hours this summer, I still had lots of time to help with the baby. That lasted from his birth until school resumed the last week of August.

Additionally, the baby was a breeze until he hit some sleep regression at 4 months. We’re talking 6+ hrs straight of sleeping every night and 2-3 hr naps regularly. It was pretty cool. Once school started, I set my alarm for 4:25 so I could bottle feed the little guy, put him back to bed, and then squeeze my 11 mile loop in before work. Then, I would get 4-5 junk miles during my middle school XC team’s 2 hrs practice. Granted, this was while I was monitoring/motivating the kids and we are talking 9-10 minute pace with breaks for stretching, chatting, recording times, etc but I still count the mileage! Lastly, my wife is a SAINT.

To answer another post - I ran 2:00/4:39/10:17 in HS and had a 17:09 season average for 5k as a senior. Didn’t run at all from 2006 until 2010 when I took it back up.

Shorter distance PRs are currently 15:22 and 1:11:38. Although, I would have to think that I could currently smash the half PR and could maybe take the 5k down a little.

Bro perfect wrote:

Congrats on a great time.

What background did you have in running when you ran your first marathon and what were your shorter distance PRs?

I misread the question a little. Prior to my 3:21:57, I ran an 18:24 5k and 1:04:56 10 miler, so I definitely underperformed. I went out in 1:30 and blew up HARD. It was not pretty.

Awesome job GB. Hard work pays off. Your progression gives me great hope in my own running. In the midst of year 3.

Way to freaking go man. Just remarkable.

How long was your formal build up?

What were a few favorite workouts for your build up?

Taper/peak?

Discus

A few ?’s wrote:

How long was your formal build up?

What were a few favorite workouts for your build up?

Taper/peak?

Discus

Here are some workouts copy and pasted from another thread:

-21 miles with 10-20 alternating 5:34/6:40

-4 mile tempo at 5:22 followed by 4 x 1:00 up 3% grade at 5:00 (jog back down for recovery)

-8 x 1k at 3:06.7 avg with 400m jog

-22 miles with last 7 at 5:34 average

-16 miles with middle 10 at 5:28 averagde (this was a 10 mile race that I won by 7 minutes; 3 mile warmup, race, 3 mile cooldown)

-3 miles at 5:33, 2 miles at 5:27, 1 mile at 5:18 (2:00 jog between each)

Sunday, 9/16 - 22 miles with last 6 at 5:33, 5:34, 5:34, 5:33, 5:33, 5:30

Wednesday, 9/19 - 20:00 @ 5:33 pace, 6 x 1:00 on/1:00 off @ 5:10 pace, 15:00 @ 5:32 pace

Sunday, 9/23 - 20 miles with last 10 alternating 5:35/6:25

Wednesday, 9/26 - 3 miles @ 5:27, 2:00 jog, 6 x 1k (400 recovery) @ 3:11 avg, 2:00 jog, 2 x 400 (200 jog) @ 72, 71

Sunday, 9/30 - 20.6 miles with first 6 @ 6:50 and then 2 x 6 miles with 1 mile in between, and 1.6 miles cooldown; 6 mile segments were 5:34, 5:34, 5:33, 5:35, 5:33, 5:33 ... 5:35, 5:33, 5:33, 5:36, 5:34, 5:17

Wednesday, 10/3 - 6 x 1 mile on the road (2:45 jog recovery) @ 5:24, 5:14, 5:07, 5:13, 5:14, 4:54. **My coach said I could go sub-5:10 on #3 and #6 if I was feeling good. The 4:54 was the easiest sub 5 of my life and I definitely felt like I could have done a few more reps.

Sunday, 10/7 - 20.7 miles easy

Wednesday, 10/10 - 15 minutes @ 5:28, 2:00 jog, 4 x 800 @ 2:33 (400 recovery), 1:00 jog, 4 x 400 @ 74

Sunday, 10/14 - 14.1 miles with lat 6 miles at 5:35, 5:37, 5:32, 5:34, 5:31, 5:23

Wednesday, 10/17 - 2 miles @ 5:30, 3:00 jog, 1 mile @ 5:25, 2:00 jog, 2 x 800 @ 2:36 (400 recovery), 1:00 jog, 2 x 400 @ 74

You can see the taper in the workouts. For mileage, I was above 100 every week for 15 straight weeks. The week of October 8 - October 14, I dropped to 87.1; the week of October 15 - October 21, I hit 83.9. That did include 28 miles on race day though.