what i learned about my preparation from my latest marathon.

I'm writing this blog just a few days after running the 2024 Edinburgh Marathon where I achieved a Personal Best of 2:49:44, which was a personal best by just 87 seconds. But, what I was more pleased about, was that it was 14 minutes better than my most recent previous marathon in Dublin just last October.

Rather than indulge in a full breakdown of my training and plan, I thought it might be useful to share things that I "believe" made a difference this time round, to help me get that PB and make a good improvement in the past 12 months.

1. Mileage: I'm a firm believer that if you increase mileage that you will naturally improve (to a point). I made sure that I tried to be super consistent with the block, hitting the weekly mileage I had planned (progressive overload) and trying to programme around more mileage yet allowing the right balance of intensity, duration and recovery

2. Deload on race weeks: This year I made sure that deload weeks were in line with tune up / fitness building race weeks. This allowed me to recover more after the races and reduce injury risk, yet still get great benefits from decent mileage and the race efforts. Mileage these weeks were not too low, approx 14% less.

3. Block Duration: I had my plan set to 18 weeks of specific planned training, which for me I think helped. My previous personal bests in the low 2:50's were built around this duration and it seems to work for me, as I tend to peak late and have the type of body that responds well I think to a high aerobic load from a longer plan

4. Session Consistency: This is maybe the one thing that changed quite a bit. Most of my previous marathon plans always had the typical tempo (LT1 or LT2) sessions and interval sessions mixed with easy, steady and long runs, and some of the long runs having marathon efforts. The difference though this time round it that I tried to build in at least the same session every 2 weeks, and on the same route. This gave me the chance to compare the data, how I felt at paces and durations and as I got fitter, seeing the data and how I felt improve built up some great confidence.

5. Keeping the super shoes locked up: I think I used carbon plated shoes on a total of about 4 runs in the whole training block (2 of which were tune up races). This I feel helped me feel like the marathon paces practiced in training would feel a touch easier and added confidence that they could be sustained.

6. Tracking weight: This is a big one for me. I would place a lot of value on this personally, but know others who could still race very well with no focus on this at all. I have also ran very close to the time I achieved in Edinburgh about 5kg heavier. I did though try and get my weight to a point at the start of 2024 that I then just had to maintain or try and reduce very minimally. This then meant that injury risk was lowered and I could focus on good fuelling, with not the added stress of trying to cut weight. I don't have a natural runners body, so this focus on getting my weight down at the end of 2023 I think helped a lot heading into the training block.

7. Core Strength: I tried to incorporate a simple 20 mins core strength and upper body routine into my day, every day, with every 2 weeks a slightly longer more dedicated strength session of 45mins / 1 hr. I think this helped with posture, form and feeling in control during the longer runs.

8. Good training partner: A friend from my running club, who was always a little ahead of me in terms of preparation (London was his goal race, 5 weeks before) shared some long runs and sessions. As we had similar goals and relatively similar fitness levels, getting those marathon pace efforts and some intervals shared was a great benefit.

Running does really give you back what you put in, and if you're like me as the average Joe and you're maybe not blessed with the the most natural ability, then this probably means even more than those who have some natural genetic or long-term endurance training from a younger-age benefit.

I hope that you find this useful when it comes to thinking about your own performances and training. I'll be trying to take these learnings into my next set of goals, which are looking to me more half marathon specific this autumn, before focussing again on a spring marathon training block in 2025, all being well. 🤞🏻