How To Run A Marathon - Part 1
It’s April 3rd 2025 - 3 days before I attempt the Brighton Marathon. I’ve finished my final training run, and I’m using this blog to release the nervous energy I have ahead of the race.
At the beginning of 2025, I set myself a goal of overcoming my fear of marathons and improving my fitness. I had achieved 1,000 miles run in 2024, and wanted to build on that momentum. I completed my first marathon in 2023. It was so painful that I dropped out of two marathons since (2023 Isle of Wight Marathon and 2024 Southampton Marathon). Knowing how much pain I was in at the end of 2023 was terrifying. However, I promised myself I would overcome the negative feelings towards marathon running and run a marathon in under 4 hours (my previous time was 4 hours 17 minutes).
I’m 300% more prepared for this race than my first marathon, but I'm nervous ahead of it—I guess I know the pain I’m in for this time.
How NOT To Run A Marathon: My First Marathon
In January 2023, I signed up for the Southampton Marathon. I planned to complete it under 3 hours and 30 minutes. I thought I knew everything there was to know about fitness and training, so I didn’t look for advice about how to structure a marathon training plan. Big mistake.
From the time I signed up for the marathon to race day, I only ran 114.67 miles, with only two above 10 miles. The second—a half marathon—ended up doing more damage than good. I went into the marathon with knee sleeves and taped up ankles to protect myself from the injuries I had sustained from pushing too hard.
Not only that, but 24 hours before the marathon, I was somewhere over Europe on a plane back from a 2-day trip to Poland, where I paid no consideration to my nutrition and preparation for the event. Another mistake (we’re now at 3 big mistakes, if you’re counting. And we’ve not even arrived at the race yet).
Although I thought I knew what I was doing, I had no clue. That shows in my limited preparation.
Despite all that, I was on course to achieve my 3 hours and 30 minutes goal when I reached 13.1 miles. My knees and ankles were in pain, but the energy from the people around me and the event pulled me through, and I was feeling good. That’s when it all went downhill.
The Southampton course is two laps of the same route. In the first lap, you are running with people completing the 5km, 10km, half marathon, and full marathon, so there’s a lot of energy to feed off. When I crossed the halfway point, it was a lot lonelier. That allowed my mind to settle into the realisation that I had to do that all over again. That’s when the pain settled in, and my mind became weaker with each step. Remember I never ran more than 13 miles in my entire life up to this point.
I bonked hard, and in every way imaginable. It took almost 2 and a half hours to complete the second half of the marathon because I felt sick and was in a world of pain (mile 23 was almost walking pace at 15:07 min/ mile).
It might seem that I’m being very hard on myself for my naive performance that was well below my expectations, but I am proud of myself for completing the marathon. It might have been 50 minutes slower than my target time, but I did it. That’s something nothing or no one can ever change.
That brings us to my second attempt at a full marathon. My target time is 30 minutes slower than the first marathon, but I have run over 300 miles MORE in training for this one than before. Let me explain.
How I Trained For The Marathon
I broke my monthly mileage records in the first two months of 2025 (126 miles in January and 148 miles in February), almost beating it again in March (143 miles) if not for a tapering phase. The best part is, it has felt natural because I’ve incrementally and progressively overloaded with the intensity, frequency, and distance of each run, and researched training tips from people who have actually achieved what I want to achieve.
I’ve run over 110 miles per month since November 2024, but I focused on fine-tuning the training since I signed up for this marathon in January.
The biggest differences for this training plan have been the varied runs. When I was training for the 2023 Southampton marathon, every run was an all-out effort to go as fast as I could, usually covering 3-5 miles at a time. This time, I’ve broken my training runs into three categories:
Easy aerobic runs - these are exactly what they sound like. I measure the “easy” with both a 1-10 rate of perceived exertion (RPE) scale as well as my heart rate. These runs varied from 3-7 miles, where my primary goal is to keep my heart rate between 140-150 bpm. This builds an aerobic base.
Interval runs - these were often the most intense workouts of the training plan. I varied the type of interval runs to include speed work (eg, 1-minute sprints followed by 90 seconds rest), tempo runs (changing the pace during the run to a time faster than, or the same as, my target marathon pace).
Long runs - anything over 10 miles. These were the highlights of my training week, completed every Saturday or Sunday and acting as a simulation of race day practice (waking up at the same time, fueling with a high-carb, easy-to-digest breakfast, and starting the run around 9 am). I built up the distance of these runs to a peak of 21 miles, 6 weeks before the marathon.
There’s Only One Thing Left To Do
The last few days have been a bit of a nervous blur for me. All I’ve been thinking about is the marathon. In some ways, I haven't even considered that I have a life to plan after April 6th. Have I trained enough? Am I going to get injured before the run? How am I going to fuel my run? What if I need the toilet?
I’m not just running this marathon for myself. I’m representing and raising money for OpenSight, a charity that helps people living with sight loss. If you would like to donate to the cause, please use this link.
I'll see you on the other side (part 2, where I'll unpack the marathon after completing it).
