After a lot of post-race analysis I wanted to share my thoughts on why I failed my first marathon attempt 2 weeks ago, and what I’m going to do differently next time.
As a quick refresher, up until 1 year ago I was convinced I would never be a “runner” because of very sharp knee pain in my right knee. It would typically flare up 3-5 kms into a run, and I had all but given up on running long distance.
On the 3rd round of gym closures in April 2021 I decided I was going to use the time to finally make it a priority to improve my running.
And that’s what I did. Over the next 12 months I built up to being able to consistently run 20-30 kms and was training for a full marathon of 42.2 kms.
I did this with a combination of:
1. Gradually increasing my distance & fixing my stride
2. Daily stretching, mobility, and soft-tissue work
However when it came to marathon day, I felt great for 21.1-kms but then quickly fell apart when my knee pain flared up again, forcing me to stop at 31.2 kms.
There are a lot of things I could have done differently, but here are 3 of the ones I think would have made the biggest difference.
1. More opportunity for 30-35-km long runs.
My longest run was a single long run of 31 kms 3 weeks out from race day.
I think this would have been fine if it wasn’t my first marathon, and if I didn’t have the knee issue.
This run was very challenging, and I think if I had a few more weeks to get another 2-3 runs in that range for training it would have helped a lot.
2. Figuring out long run fueling cost me training time
Because this was all new to me, I had to figure out how to fuel myself on long runs.
Figuring this out cost me training time because I had to cut a couple 28-km runs short due to inadequate fuel – I literally drained myself of energy.
If that hadn’t happened it would have helped a lot, similar to point #1 above.
3. I neglected strength training
Marathon training takes up a lot of time when you’re running 5-6x/week, sometimes for 1-3 hrs at a time.
For a while I was doing 2 workouts/day – running in the morning and lifting in the afternoon.
But again, because this was all new to me it was a lot for my body to recover from and something had to give.
So eventually strength training got pushed to the side because running was the priority.
Rookie mistake and I should have known better.
I’ve literally trained runners and preached the importance of strength training to them for years. And here I was making the same mistake.
I honestly believe, even aside from #1 and #2, if I had kept up with strength training I would have finished that marathon.
And that’s what bothers me the most.
I can live with #1 and #2 because it was a learning process. But this one shouldn’t have happened, and it won’t happen again.
Next time, strength training will be as much of a priority as running and mobility.
So there you have it. The 3 biggest lessons from my failed first marathon attempt.
Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes, as I will.
On to the next…
-Cam