First Marathon Horror Experience

by Neil Taylor
(West Midlands UK )

Having just completed my first marathon I would appreciate some advice. I had trained up to 20 miles for this run and was assured that the event / cheering crowds would see me through the last six...

I felt good up to 19 miles then hit the wall at twenty and had to walk to 23/24 but managed to run the last 2 due to having friends / family at the finish.

Firstly, I feel a bit of a fraud having walked 2 miles and feel a bit disappointed that I couldn't run the whole 26. My actual time was 4hrs 55 mins, which again I was disappointed with.

My initial reaction on finishing was "never again" but already I feel I want another go with the time being a real issue for me.

In hindsight I should have completed more longer runs, and only managed to hit 20 miles 2 weeks before the event.

I now have about 6-7 months to prepare as I am eyeing my next marathon.

What sort of training activity do you recommend I do before I launch into a marathon running program? I have picked up my running again and I have done a 6, 13, 6, and 9 miles with 1 days rest in between. The poor marathon experience is playing on my mind and feel I should be doing more?
Any advice?

Regards, Neil (UK)

Answer by Dominique:
Hi Neil,

Thanks for your marathon training question. Yes, I do have some advice.

First off though, congratulations on making it through your first marathon. A great feat. Secondly, really wise to start thinking about your next marathon now! This will provide you with some good time to prepare.

My thoughts:

1. About hitting the wall
2. Avoiding the wall - training
3. Avoiding the wall - nutrition
4. Some other thoughts

About Hitting the Wall

I am not sure who guaranteed that you'd be fine those last six miles... but hardly anyone is.

Everything hurts, your energy is gone.

Even with really good training and years of experience, the last part of a marathon is hard and tricky.

I'd say it is almost unavoidable that hitting the wall is going to happen in your first marathon! Next time you will be better prepared, you will have had more running experience, more twenty milers in the legs, etc.

It is too bad that nobody warned you strongly enough in advance, otherwise it would not have been such a disappointment.

Avoiding the Wall - Training

When it comes to your training, I'll break it up in a few different parts, starting off with the long run.

Build up the long run now
What I like about starting your 'unofficial' marathon campaign early is that you are able to start ramping up your mileage earlier. You don't need to immediately build back to 20 milers. But a very good place to be is if you can get to a point where 13-15 milers are starting to feel comfortable. And then you start your marathon training program.

The big benefit of this is that when you then start your marathon training the climb up to 20 miles is suddenly pretty small. Depending on the length of the marathon training plan you could be running 17-20 milers a dozen times or more. You could be doing some goal pace running in some of your long runs.

That all makes a world of difference. You could be hitting 20 milers five times in your training. They will never get comfortable, but you will get very used to that distance, which is a good thing.

Plenty of middle-long distance runs
One of the secrets to a killer marathon is to have a middle to long distance run in the middle of the week, in addition to the traditional weekend long run. So if you run 16-20 miles in your long run, do a mid-week run of 10-15 miles.

It's often hard to get this mid-week long run in, you have to fit work and life in between your running. But regularly running 90-120 minutes mid-week will do wonders for your endurance.

Taper
Marathon training is really tough. You really need to taper properly before your marathon. General advice is to taper for three weeks. Your 20 miler two weeks before the marathon was likely a bit too close to the event, especially if you are not used to the 20 milers. This is where the second benefit of starting your marathon campaign earlier. When you have already hit the 20 miles a number of times you will feel less of a need to cram in long runs close to the actual race. Also see the marathon taper page.

Avoiding the Wall - Nutrition

Dialing up the training will make a big difference.

The other thing you need to focus on is the nutrition, especially your carb loading and your energy intake during the marathon.

The training will help your body become more efficient in its energy use. But that does not take away that without proper carb loading and nutrition during the marathon at some point you will run out of your fuel, glycogen.

There is quite a bit to cover here, but check out my page about marathon training nutrition to learn more about carb loading.

Some Other Thoughts

Just, some other thoughts, I wanted to share with you.

First of all, why the rush...? I can understand you are disappointed and that you want to wipe out the, in your eyes, poor performance, with another race. There is however also merit in stepping away from the marathon and focusing on another race distance first.

It would give you a lot longer to prepare and it would give you the opportunity to train for a shorter distance (10k / half marathon) first. There are many good runners who follow exactly that approach. They don't run marathon after marathon after marathon. They may do one marathon every 12-18 months. In between they train for other distances.

They build up their speed on the somewhat shorter distances in one season to then concentrate on a marathon in the other season.

Secondly, a marathon is, as you have experienced, very painful and a real attack on the body. It is unclear to me how much rest you have taken after the marathon. But jumping into running training only a few days after the event is going to have some repercussions down the track. Your muscles have not healed from your marathon effort, you need to give them some time.

You run the risk of getting yourself injured. I recommend a few weeks of rest, with possibly some alternative activities like swimming, a bit of weights, bike riding etc. Enjoy the break from running for a little while. You need to refresh again, both body and soul, before you throw yourself into another tough marathon training program.

Hope all of this helps.
Best of luck.
Kind regards,
Dominique