Finishing a 3 hour marathon.

This is a personal blog post, since many people asked me about the Marathon. It may also contain a bit of bragging and some practical tips. If you do not like that, do not read on or skip right to the tips section.

There are two parts here:

1. my experience of my sub-3 marathon attempt — and wether I made it or not
2. a couple of key points from my experience, what went well and what I’d recommend other runners.

You can skip ahead to the second section if you don’t care about my experience, that’s understandable and fine ;)

My Experience

Preparation

Hamburg Marathon. Set for April 2020.

2020? No. One virus upsets the world, forcing it to be moved, twice, until September 12th 2021.

So, in 2020 I and my running buddy Fabian run half marathons (I think at around 1:28), a sub-39 10k and keep training consistently for the upcoming marathon — stay in shape, a lot done together with our friends from the HHSC.

Because of a random mood swing, I also made a relaxed marathon PR in September 2020 on the Kyffhäuser Berglauf at about 3:45 at about 1000m elevation gain. (I did not aim for a PR here.)

Fun fact: in 2020 I got awarded the “first place in our VIPERdev Strava club” by Fabian — usually by the end of the week, if we’re close to each other oftentimes one or the other of us would run a few additional kilometers to be on top. In that particular week, I received a notification of Fabian finishing a run that puts him just 200m (that magnitude) further than me at 11:53pm. Luckily I was outside, turned my GPS on and walked for 500m to upload the activity just before midnight. The trophy you see aside, awarded by Fabian himself, was the funniest birthday present I’ve received in quite a while.

Around 3 months before the marathon we start with our training plan: from now on we oftentimes run at least one half marathon and another 16–24k run with longer intervals. Getting into the plan was quite hard, we did get used to it after a while though. When we couldn’t meet, we would run via phone/headphones, which lead to me building the SameRun app, which we used later for the same purpose.

Especially when SameRun was done, I used it regularly to fill up my weekly mileage to run with colleagues from Berlin, Hamburg and Flensburg — I think I ran with about 6 runners of all paces during the training in addition to the occasional session with our running club. (Those sessions did get a bit rarer since they were a bit short in distance in comparison to our training plan.)

The workouts where mostly assymetric, meaning that we usually did a rather long warmup (5–10km), then some intervals (sometimes also multiple distances, e.g. 3x600m@4:00, then another 6x200m@3:40), then 3.2km cooldown. Although uncommon, that structure did keep the training session a lot more interesting than usual.

In our peak week, I ran 70km — and unlike in previous trainings the gradual increase, careful switching of shoes and immediately stop on noticable problems with knees etc. I had almost no problems with injuries. (Unlike, sadly, Fabian who did put in a lot more mileage on average for a while too long, some weeks running at least 7km every day plus our workouts without rest days :()

A couple of weeks before the race, I did a 5k speed-test, which ended up getting a 3:34min/km pace — this significantly boosted my confidence in my race-ability and was a nice quick workout without a long resting time that can be done in addition to the longer workouts.

The last two weeks, we tapered, reducing our training volume by a lot, with some shorter speed workouts to keep the form. The training part was done, it was time for our body to rest and prepare for the race.

The Race

Thanks to the Hamburg Marathon team, I was able to switch the starting block and able to start together with a dedicated pacer for my 3:00 goal. From my VDotO2 Values, I got a prediction of a 2:55 marathon, Garmins algorithms suggested a similar goal for me.

km 0–10

Smooth start. Everything felt great. Our pacer did overpace a little bit, however not too much.

The first kilometers flew by in no time, with almost no effort. We ran in a bigger group of 15ish people all aiming for the 3:00 goal.

The distance difference remained despite the GPS track taking a noticeable shortcut during the tunnel section.

During the first ten kilometers it was very apparent that everyones watches developed a deviation from the measured track distance of around 300 meters total. This was worrying me, as it became increasingly harder to pace correctly and I was sure that I could run the race with distances measured by Garmin — not so sure about an additional 300 or more meters! (On almost every measured track, my watch usually wants me to run several hundred meters after making it to the finish line to get my distance. It also consistently tracks less distances than other brands.)

The distance difference remained, even after we passed a tunnel, where the GPS devices usually track less than the real distance.

km 10–24

Our pacing group started getting smaller and we started meeting people we knew — from HHSC members over friends and family to our friends from aiconix (a company we work with at my company VIPERdev).

At some point our pacer lost his balloon accidentally (which was fortunate for him, that thing looked quite annoying) and needed a quick toilet break. I did get approached by at least one other runner who made clear that he now relied on me keeping the pace ;) (which I did at least until the pacer kept up).

While our pacer needed a toilet break, apparently a bunch of people where following my lead for a while. Me in that picture, very happy to see the group that took the photo. What a boost!

km 24–35

“This is where the actual race starts”, is what many people tell you. And it did. During this section our pacing group completely dissolved. Most people could not keep up anymore with our 4:15min/km (on Garmin: 4:11min/km because of the distance difference) pace and we started passing many, many people who apparently overpaced by quite a bit in the beginning. I myself couldn’t keep up with the original pace anymore without taking a big effort, which would have been stupid to push for at this stage. Despite that, I kept passing people; it seems that most runners in that area have started far too fast.

km 35–42

“This is where it gets brutal.” People always agree on that. So far I never felt that to this extent. This day, I did.

My legs got heavy. My back was heaving trouble keeping me stable. My pulse got consistently higher.

I was mostly able to keep the pace, getting all the boosts possible from people standing aside, clapping and cheering. I did walk on two water stations, probably loosing about a minute, to drink some more water than before. (This could maybe have been avoidable, however, I find that I run for fun and health and that does superseede my arbitrarily set goal of finishing fast.)

On Strava, I made it ;)

Shortly before the actual race ended, at around 2:59:26, my watch attested me a full Marathon. I passed the finish line officially after 3:00:56.

Post Race

Both Fabian and me were quite exhausted, but happy to have made it.

This was the hardest thing I’ve done so far. I’d even go so far and say this was the first time, I’ve ran a proper race. This was the first time, where I couldn’t easily run the last kilometers far faster than the first. I also failed to maintain my usual negative split.

The tracked race is available here.

I finished with a weird feeling. Did I make it? Did I not?

Since my GPS agrees with the devices of many other people and is measurably more pessimistic than others as well as any track, I for myself have decided that I made the personal goal I set for myself.

What’s next? I’ve got no idea :) Maybe a 2:55, ideally on an official round, maybe I’ll chase shorter distances like 10k in 38 minutes that are still missing for me.

How to: Finish a Sub-3-Hour Marathon

Based on my experience, I decided to put down a couple of keypoint for anyone who wants to attempt such a feat!

Note: These things are specifically for a sub-3-hour Marathon. If you haven’t run a couple of marathons before and want to get faster, they are likely not what you need or want ;)

Let’s go (ehm, run!)

Talent

I am a true believer in motivation. I do believe, that almost anyone with sufficient motivation can achieve virtually anything.

Given that, it hurts me to say: from all I’ve read, heard about and seen from other runners, finishing a Marathon faster than 3 hours does not seem to be one of those things.

Before I started the specific training for this race, I finished a half marathon in under 1:28 and I do recommend that as a base to go on.

Training

The most important points for your training, in my humble opinion; I have not been able to scientifically validate those but I also haven’t found some of those points to that clarity on other places on the internet, so here they are:

• At this point you know how to find a proper training plan. Do it.
• Train regularly and consistently! Try to not leave out any important sessions.
• Build at least two “hard” sessions into every week. One of those would be a bit longer (usually between 20 and 40km), the other would be a bit shorter (16–24km) but contain intervals of all kinds. I found that my training plan did not have long enough long runs in it so that killed me in the end. Make sure you can comfortably run a 30k distance in your training and not just your weekly half marathon.
• Build up your weekly mileage, you’ll likely need to average around 60km/wk to get somewhere peaking around 70 or more.
• Try out your nutrition strategy at least once in your long runs, otherwise, train without nutrition to enable your body to survive on its own.
• Run in at least 3 different pairs of shoes (I found that injury risk increases for me if I don’t)
• Do core workouts, your back and core will slow you down if you don’t
• If your heel, knee or anything else hurts during the training, stop within 5 minutes if you don’t get it under control via trying to improveyour running technique. Worst case, walk home or take the bus. If you’re injured, you will be out, wether you want it or not. If you run injured, you’ll worsen your technique and your body will learn running wrongly to adjust to it. This rule superseedes the consistency rule by far. Check if switching your shoes on a similar workout helps you.
• Do not overtrain! If you feel that your body can’t handle it, stop it, ramp up slower. Build in at least one full rest day a week, if not two.
• Get a training buddy to train all your workouts with. That will help you not skipping runs. I had a total of 6 other runners training with me in person but also at least half of the mileage also remotely, via the SameRun app. Without those people I would not have pulled through my training plan like that (and I’ve seen other sources showing that many people average around 30–40% below their planned volume.)

Race

The most important points for race day, in my humble opinion; I have not been able to scientifically validate those. Especially the hydration/nutrition strategy is derived from reading random articles on the internet:

• Pre race: hydrate well in the 2 days before the race
• Pre race: eat breakfast, e.g. an oatmeal, about 3 hours before the race
• Pre race: go and visit the toilet directly before the race, take your time
• Take water at every station, sip just a bit but continuously rehydrate. I ignored coke/isotonic drinks that I couldn’t try during training.
• In addition to the water I refuelled with just a few gels and a bar, most importantly: each in combination with water.
• If possible, start with a pacer. Our 3:00 pacing group was really motivating (while it lasted at least). Do not overpace.
• If you have a couple of people who can be at the track, that can give a great boost. Also some people on the track offer to slap hands — each of those behaves like nitro in a racing game. The better you feel, the better you’ll perform. AND:
• Enjoy the race! You’re doing this for fun in the end ;)

The End

If you run a marathon or anything else, always keep in mind, you’re doing this for fun and for yourselves!

Thanks for reading, keep running (in person or remotely) and give me claps here on medium if you want me to continue writing such posts :)