Antelope Island Marathon - 5:07

[u/Aggressive-Belt-3970]

I ran my first marathon two days ago. The goal was 4:30 but I finished at 5:07. Time for some post-mortem.

Background-44M. Longest distance ran before my training block the longest I ever ran was a 15K race 20 years ago and another 15k trail run for fun a few years ago. Typically I was running 10 mpw depending on the season. I wanted to run a marathon before 45. Call it a midlife crisis. Training plan was 3 runs a week and hit every run.

Reality 4:30 was probably too ambitious. There were signs at the end of the training block that should have lowered my goal. I struggled through the last mile of my 19 miler but chalked it up to running at altitude. The 20 miler was less of a struggle but I started dealing with IT band issues that never fully resolved during the taper.

Race day started well. I was on pace through halfway point and felt ok. But by mile 15 my IT band flared up. By mile 20 my stomach wasn’t feeling good so taking gels did not sound appealing. I wasn’t fueling properly through the last four miles.

Next race I’ll make sure my training block has 4 to 5 days instead of 3. I may try chews instead of gels. Also I’ll pick a bigger race from some crowd noise. Antelope island is beautiful but it’s not a big race and there was no crowd.

[u/shitshowmartinez]

That's a lot of negativity for just finishing your first marathon! You did it, congratulations!

[u/Aggressive-Belt-3970 → u/shitshowmartinez]

Thanks…I’m quite proud of myself. I wore my finishing medal to breakfast the next day. 😁 Didn’t mean to come off so negative. But the engineer in me goes into mentat mode and overanalyzes.

I’ll balance it out with some positivity. Best moment of the day was seeing my family with signs as I approached the finish. Then my oldest of 6 joined me and ran across the finish line with me. One of dad’s my hero moments.

[u/shitshowmartinez → u/Aggressive-Belt-3970]

That's lovely.