Marathon Blog

The days after my first marathon were an experience in them self! My legs ached for a full three days and I could hardly move on Monday because a muscle in my back was in spasm. Going down stairs was practically impossible. And I refused to wear anything but flip-flops. But it all felt good in a way because the sense of achievement you get after your first marathon is truly unique… I think is one of the most satisfying things I have ever done!

But it wasn’t long before I started asking myself what I could have done better… I knew there wasn’t much more I could have done on race day, but in training for my first marathon, what did I do right and what did I do wrong?

I was pretty happy with my time of 3:07, but I know I could have done better if I had trained slightly differently. For three quarters of the marathon, things were fine, but I crashed badly in the last quarter. In fact, that last quarter was easily the most painful thing I have ever done… I had no idea it would be anything like that!

Here’s a breakdown of my splits:
0-10km: 42mins
10-20km: 40mins
20-30km: 43mins
30-40km: 53mins
If only I had been able to maintain that pace in the last quarter!

My marathon training consisted of a lot of intense cardiovascular sessions… runs that were 1 hour or less and very fast. I think this would have been good half marathon training but I now realise I should have put a lot more emphasis on the long runs. I had traded run-length for intensity and found out that it didn’t work like that. Simply put, my legs weren’t conditioned to run the distance.

My training had been effective in some ways; at no point did my stamina limit me… even during the last 6 miles, as I was munching away on sweets, my heart rate and breathing weren’t laboured. But all of the stamina in the world won’t help if your legs stop working! So my lesson to everyone is… there is no substitute for long runs! (But I suppose you already knew that)

I am definitely going to run the Marathon again. And I am going to do plenty of 20 mile+ runs… I will have the fear of that pain to motivate me!