What Running a Personal Best in the Marathon Feels Like
A race report for the London Marathon 2024
It’s been a week since I ran my home city marathon in a personal best of 3:46:18 in front of around 750,000 cheering volunteers and spectators. It’s up there as one of the best days of my life, and certainly one of my finest runs.
The London Marathon is a significant event in the running calendar. The greatest elite runners travel from all over the world to have a shot at the £45,000 first prize and a further 53,000 find themselves running for a mixture of personal pride, charity fundraising, and commitments made when they first got that golden ticket to run.
I headed into this race with lofty ambitions — a 3:30 time, which represented a massive personal best. I’ve run five marathons before, and every single one of them has kicked my arse. I was determined to turn this around — but not only to beat my 4:09 PB, but to take on a serious step up in my running.
Executing The Plan
I headed into marathon training in good shape. I spent December doing Advent Running — a challenge to run at least 30 minutes a day for the first 24 days of the month in the run-up to Christmas. It worked twofold; firstly I had a strong engine of lungs and legs, and secondly, I learned the…
