Is this why I bonked during my marathon?

Cocoa Crispies wrote:

1. I wore beat up trainers that had 700+ miles on them to race. Yeah I know dumb, but it was mostly because I was dealing with Achilles issues two weeks prior and was afraid to wear my tight flats. But these trainers were so worn out and clunky that by mile 12 I switched from forefoot striking to heel striking because it was wearing out my hips. But yes, I know dumb decision in retrospect.

2. I only fueled once at mile 10. This also I know, dumb. I was relatively inexperienced with fueling so I just made bad moves with this too.

Do you think these are the primary two reasons for bonking at the end, moreso than a training reason?

Yes to number one, no to number two. Number three, your fitness was worth what you ran in those shoes.

There's also a good chance that the reason you were having Achilles problems in the first place was because your trainers were beat to hell.

Buy some new shoes!

I think you need a lot more trainers for a 70-80 mile week.

Use at least 2-3 different shoes each week.

A hard marathon requires close to 3000 calories. Your body was storing less than 2000 calories as glycogen. So assuming that you ate an entire chipotle burrito at your single refueling point (or perhaps a complete Arby's meal) then I'm sure bonking can only be blamed on the shoes

Yeah a 1:12 half should honestly make you a low 2:30s threat or even sub-2:30. You should be able to knock out a 2:36-2:38 with a little bit of comfort. Going out in 1:22 & falling a touch behind could mean a number of things. You definitely want to look at fueling. Marathoning is a calorie counting game. The IAAF recommends about 90g of carbs an hour. That can happen in a variety of ways. A Maurten Gel 100, for example, has 25g/carbs. That would mean consuming more than 8 of them if you're on your feet for 2+ hours. Most of us under-eat in the marathon & hit the wall but it is somewhat avoidable. You should be drinking carbs and eating 4-5 gels to get as close to 200+ carbs as you can tolerate. Maybe the other piece of the equation is training. More miles. More long runs. More long run workouts. That can all help you run low-2:30s or better. I think with proper footwear and fueling should should be able to knock out a sub-2:40.

I don't see how a 1:12 athlete could go out that slow and still bonk that badly.

I'm going to guess that you didn't bonk (meaning run out of glycogen), but rather that you didn't have enough in the way of long runs in your buildup. In conjunction with the beat up shoes your legs were pounded.

Did your quads kill for a few days?

The last half of the marathon begins at mile 20. Your long runs should have been 30 miles. Would you train for a mile by never exceeding 8 tenths (0.80) of a mile during training?

Sounds like he peaked for the half, as most runners tend to run worse at the goal/championship than they did early- or mid-season.

My quads were definitely feeling it the 2-3 days after

Thank you for the advice everyone! I'm going to hopefully prepare better and learn from this last one for the next one.

Too many long runs might have fatigued your legs. Your pacing needs to be more consistent. While you took 224 to get to 23 miles, the sub 6 pace was too fast for that time in the race.

Get some racers to run the marathon in, run 6:10s to 20 miles and then put the hammer down.

You left out some information. What was your taper like, your last week of training, your food the days/night before the marathon, and your food the morning of, if any?

Agree with other poster that you needed more long runs. Daniels recommends at least six 20+ milers before a marathon.

A. Did you carb load the day before ?

B. You should’ve drunk a cup of Gatorade every 5 K.

Now your glycogen stores were empty by 23 miles AND you were dehydrated.

What was the weather like?

My guess is that you weren't ready for the distance. You need more 20 milers plus long tempos under marathon pace (3x5k, for example).

The nutrition part is overrated unless it was very hot. I normally only consume water and don't bonk.

If you were battling an injury in the lead-up weeks, that is symptomatic of overtraining. The proverbial tip of the iceberg. The shoes and fueling probably piled on to this drop in fitness.

make sure that you not overtrained and taper the last 2 weeks

get some mod shoes that are known to be fast and absorb shock on achilles, given your stride. dtle.

study feeding on the run, try tour de france formulas.

practice fueling on long runs

take your best sports drink prior to racing so delivery is in the blood at race start.

work out everything in advance.

pray, people bring their A game to the marathon, mayb e 25% of the time if that.

which means, it will take 4 tries, given good training, to get that A level result.

this is the marathon.

also, i'd take a shot of coffee, expresso with sugar at 22 miles. and sip for like 10 minutes.

More long runs, more marathon pace in the second half and more of a long run, an energy bar before the race and a gel every 45 minutes, plus alternating gatorade or water at water stops, higher mileage overall (100-120 mpw), and relatively new shoes so that you won't be changing your gait during the race, and you should honestly target low 2:30s with an eventual sub 2:30, since you've already run 1:12 on lower mileage than is optimal for the half and marathon.

Some of these are so stupid.

Yes on the shoes. Yes on the calories. Probably could hydrate better.

You've run enough for your goals. Probably closer to the 2:38 low end of your range.

A lot of people don't hit their target for the first marathon. Try again. Just the next time having another cycle in your legs should get you there.