How To Execute The Perfect Marathon

For today's case study, we just had five athletes complete a marathon and three athletes complete a half marathon over the weekend. We want to analyze exactly what went well, what went wrong and everything in between. And dad, the marathon is continuously learning experience. Especially as coaches, you always like to say that we know a lot, but we're always learning as well, especially with the athletes. So what are the key lessons that you've taken from this marathon prep from a range of athletes about what's important about in terms of marathon training?

Aren't there so many stories? And it's great fun, actually, for some people to tell their story and for others it's almost like reliving the agony of survival and you've got everything in between. There's those athletes who are running down the finish five, six kilometres of a marathon or last two or three kilometres of a half marathon, just can't wipe the smile of the face because they've actually executed everything well and they're passing people who are, you know, walking or crawling or, you know, throwing up or cramping. And it's such a great experience for those people because they've got other people in the race sort of saying, oh, way to go, you know, well done. You know, you're running well and these are things that you will remember forever. And, you know, it's a big, it's a big event to prepare for the marathon and, you know, even the half marathon, for a lot of people who've never run, you know, 5k or even 10k to run a half marathon and a marathon, they're, they're big things to take on board. And, you know, when you see, I think over the weekend at Chicago, there was 53,000 athletes completed the marathon or attempted the marathon. I'm not sure how many completed it, but for melbourne there was 44,000. But that was mixed across 10k, half marathon and marathon. So we got big numbers doing these events and there's lots of stories about people who are really, actually learning a lot about themselves, learning a lot about their ability to be durable, their ability to sustain an effort, their ability to dig deep when, when everything's falling apart. And, and the mental side of it, the toughness, the mental toughness side of it is, is also an element that you really find out about where you sit in that mental side of, of the marathon. It's a great leveler and gives you great perspective about who you are and, and, and also give a feeling of being proud about your performance and, and, and possibly not being proud and things you can do better and, and you know, you can't wait to get back into your, into your program to improve on what you've done.

So when it comes down to it, there's five key things to go through. Were you prepared enough in your training? Did you adjust to the race conditions, which equals the wind, the temperature, the heat and the terrain? Was your nutrition and hydration good enough? What was your pre race plan and execution of that race plan and then the post race analysis? So we're going to touch on all those topics in this episode, but I want to ask you, what patterns did you notice from the race execution on the weekend?

Yeah, look, it's, it's a similar theme and I randomly pick other competitors that we have nothing to do with. And I just have an interest in who's winning, some age groups and, and I always look at their first half because the, the, the marathon app is fantastic because it gives you 5k splits all the way through to the finish. So I'm just randomly picking athletes and who look like they've done good times and I want to see how they, how they measured their effort, their execution. Did they run evenly or did they run fast and finish and fade? And I don't know what their goals are. So I don't have the actual race plan, but I can just look at their positive or negative split. And every time I click on the majority of people, and I, I don't use that word loosely, it's the majority of people that I clicked on, they were slower in the second half. And to be fair, this event, the conditions were harder in the second half because, you know, there was almost 40 to 50 minutes once you hit the last turnaround into a headwind. And the wind was picking up as the day went on and the heat was rising and the terrain was hillier at the end. So I have to be a little bit fair there. But you know, when I looked at our own athletes, that didn't stop them from doing a negative split. So it was very interesting to see that. And that's one of the very first things that I'm, you know, we talk about this a lot and have for many years about, you know, your PBS will come with an even split or if you're lucky enough, a negative split. You very rarely do a pb and it still happens. You can do it, but it's not as enjoyable. But you very rarely do a PB when you start strong and fade. And they're the messages and the tips we want to get across to those budding athletes who want to do better than they did on the weekend and have another go at it. If you don't learn from how you performed on the day, then you'll probably repeat the same mistake the next time you race. And that's kind of what the purpose of this analysis is. And this podcast is trying to give you all these tips about your preparation, your nutrition, your race plan and execution and your post race analysis.

So that leads into a pretty interesting question for the marathon. Can you start too conservative? We do have some people say to us, I had too much left at the end. Can you explain to us that thought process and can you start too conservative in a marathon?

George, I don't care whether it's a marathon or whether it's a 20 minute FTP or literally a 30 second hard effort. Yes, you can start too conservative, but it's going to give you the best outcome, every single one of those options. If you start conservative, it gives you room to move. If you start at the upper end, that's great. If you can maintain and that's, that's the sign of someone who's in great form and, and they'll get an unbelievable pb. But we know from all the data that we've collected over our many years of doing this that the biggest rewards come from those who do start conservatively and they have more fun doing it because they're super strong at the end. And so the whole outcome is a win because, you know, so what if you, if you didn't, if you lost, you know, two or three seconds or in a marathon a minute, you know, it's better than losing 10. And that's kind of where I sit. The most successful I've ever been and the most successful I've had our athletes is that they've been conservative early and came home strong and negative splitted. And sure, there are exceptions, there's exceptions to everything in the world. And so we're not saying that's the only way to do it, but the odds are that if you do it this way, you a enjoy it way more because you're not, you're not desperately trying to get to the line. You're actually enjoying the process of passing people who are in that other position where they started too hard. And, and that's not enjoyable. And, and you will look at, look at all the data. Even, even the women's world record that was just broken by literally to over two minutes on the, on the weekend at Chicago, she ran so much faster in the second half and you know, we can just show example after example of people doing that and getting a world record at the elite level. So why wouldn't you think about that? The men's race at the same race at Chicago, he negative splitted by so much. He would have to say at the end, I actually probably could have gone harder. But that's actually not true because the reason you could run so well at the end is because you did start so conservatively. And he was, you know, he was, I think, in. He's one of the only top 10 runners to go under 203 in, in the world. So, you know, he had a magnificent second half compared to his first half. So they're examples of, of can you start too conservative? Yes. That's what you should be doing. That's what your aim should be.

Yeah, it's. It's a false sense of security. Having that feeling at the end, it's not really real. It's. You feel like you could have given so much more, but like you just gave in. In the initial example, you maybe you had an extra 30 seconds to a minute in you, but it's because you've paced it well that you feel that good at the end that you feel like you say, oh, I could have given much more. But had you not paced it like that, you definitely couldn't have given more at the end. And had you not negative splitted and had you gone out too hard, it would have been a disaster outcome. And we'll talk about that in a second with potentially blowing out 5, 10, 15 minutes or more in a marathon. So, yeah, it's this. When athletes say that to us, we say that's the exact feeling you should have, because trust us, that probably means that you got the most out of yourself. If you probably left a little bit on the table, but really not much in the scheme of things, but we.

Would always want that. If someone says, and look, honestly, in all the years of coaching endurance sport, and we've done every sport you can think of, we've coached them to that. The athlete who says to me, oh, I should have gone harder, I reckon I can count them on one hand compared to the, you know, the events that we've coached people to is over thousands of events. And the people who said to me at the end of an endurance race, and I'm not talking about, you know, an 800 or something like that, I'm talking about endurance, but even in an 800, you still want to pace it better than just going for broke. So it is unusual that you could. And it's false. As you said, it's not real. You could say that to yourself, but you know that had you gone out fractionally harder, you wouldn't have been able to finish the way you did. So There's a catch 22 with all of it? I think so.

Look, we're not going to discuss every single element here of a marathon in terms of training. Well, race conditions, nutrition, pre race plan, um, because we've done an entire episode on that and I think it's called how to prepare for a marathon properly. So if you want all of that info, then go check out that episode. But we do want to kind of analyze this marathon specifically. And I mentioned at the start that we're always learning with our athletes and, and seeing different athlete experiences about how their prep went and individual cases. Most of our athletes across the marathon and the half marathon had an enjoyable experience and executed really well. So what were some things that stood out in those kind of main conditions for you around the prep this time around, as well as those other factors? Conditions, nutrition, hydration, pre race plan?

Yeah, it's an incredible amount of information that has to be sorted out before you can actually put your foot on the start line. And the preparation is obviously the key to it. And it depends on where you're coming from. If you're trying to do a marathon with a really short lead in, then as long as you've got a history of endurance training into your body, you've got good load and you can cope with that, then you know, you could start your preparation with some really good long running. And are you prepared enough? Is really, are you prepared enough for the duration of this event? And as you know, just because the marathon's 42km doesn't mean you do 42km in your training. And you know, some people can run 2 hours 10 and some people are going to struggle to run 5 hours. So you know, does the 2 hour 10 runner just do 2 hours 10 or do 11 hour 30 runs or 1 hour 40? Because the 5 hour runner can't go and do 5 hour training runs as his long run, so. Or her long run. So you, you have to understand that you have to build your load over many, many weeks. And if you don't give yourself enough time, that would be the big limiter to get you to do as many long runs as possible. And we really emphasize that the long run is the key. As long as you're doing the other training as well. You can't just have the long Run and not any of the other training. So that's in your preparation, that's part of your preparation. You need to be doing the seven days of training that's in your program, not just nailing the one long run. You need to be doing all the other intermediate runs where you've got some recovery, some strength work on some hills, maybe some intervals, interval reps, maybe some fartlek work. You need all that in your program to facilitate the fact that you're going to do a marathon. So these other runs are just as important as the long run. But you know, if you don't get that long run overload where you, you know, say you started six months out where you were running 90 minutes and you progressively added five or 10 minutes to your long run, that could get you, if you're going to be a four hour runner, or three hour, 30 runner or three hour runner, that could get you really nicely on race day. You know, giving yourself all of that time to make sure that you get those long runs in where you're not going from 90 minutes to two hours to two hours, 30 to three hours over the space of six weeks. Your body can't cope with that load. And so you need to be super careful about progressing too quick. And so this is what we're talking about when we're talking about are you prepared enough? So there's a fine line between not doing enough long runs. So therefore you're not giving yourself enough time to get the long runs under your belt. And doesn't matter whether you're talking about Ironman marathon running, endurance bike riding, some of the really difficult European Haute Route tours, which is seven days for the masters rider. Doesn't matter what the endurance is if you haven't given yourself enough of this preparation time in this endurance period where you're out there preparing your body to sustain a long period of, of effort. If your body can't cope with that come race day, you're going to be, you know, you're going to fall short.

So I want to give one specific example of an athlete who sent a very nice message to you. And we're going to go through some race analysis of some specific athletes just to dissect how we look at races and what went well and what could be improved on. But this was a very nice message where the athlete said, at my first marathon, the coach I had at the time told me to run the first half as hard as I could, which I did. And of course I died in the ass. Everyone was passing me and just before the MCG, the 3 hour 40 group passed me. I was disappointed and the coach's comments were, I was not built for marathons. Today's Melbourne marathon was such a great experience and I passed the 3 hour 40 pace group and there was no way they were passing me again. In fact, no one was passing me the last 6km. I was so happy with the 5 minute PB today, especially on this course. 3 weeks after an Ironman as well. It took me 4 years to have the courage to try a marathon again. And this is all thanks to you. So what are your thoughts when you hear that kind of feedback?

Yeah, it's what it's all about. And I love getting messages like that. And ironically, that the person who wrote that is an endurance demon. And there isn't. There's an endurance event that she hasn't done. And you know, you feel bad that there's someone telling her that she's not made for endurance sport. When now we look back, you know, I think she's done Chicago, Boston, she's about to do London. She's done Melbourne, Tassie Sydney. She's done the Nice World Championship, she's done Kona, she's done Lara Pinta, she's done the Alice Springs Marathon. There isn't an event that this athlete hasn't done. And you know, that's all in, in the preparation and in the race strategy, you know, to tell someone to just go for it early, I would say that's got to be a joke, doesn't it? You can't possibly be thinking that that would be good advice to go as hard as you can and try and hang on. And yet I do hear that when I'm, when I'm listening to people at the start of the race, you know, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna try and hold this pace and see if I can hang on. Even though I know it's a bit, a bit above my level. You just shudder with fear and anxiety with what's going to happen next. Because that philosophy has only got really one outcome. And that is you're going to probably hate the experience. You're not going to get the time you wanted and you're going to maybe be half an hour worse than you were. Because if in a marathon, if you make a mistake early, you pay big time for it. As compared to a half marathon. Yeah, you still suffer 10k. Yes, it's uncomfortable. For a short period, 5k, it might be 1k of you suffering. But if you're out there for an extra hour than you should be or half an hour. That is not an enjoyable experience, especially when you're walking and you're in pain. It's just, it's just not, it's just not the experience you want. And, and yeah, it's great to get those messages. And it really re emphasizes that, you know, another happy, another happy marathon runner has been experienced by someone who's really taken good advice about, around their race plan and strategy and they've gone out and executed. And, you know, if we looked at the athletes who did the half marathon, it's just music to my eyes to see them all, all negative split where, you know, they're running around 130s. The three guys, three guys ran with him, three minutes of each other, which, you know, which is quite ironic, between 130 and 133. And, and, you know, two of them ran 10 or 15 seconds faster in the second half per kilometer than they did in the first half. And some people out there could say, well, they left too much out, too much on the table there. Well, it's not true because, you know, a couple of them hadn't actually done a half marathon before. So there's a whole lot of things you need to consider when you, when you're coming up with your race plan. What experience do you have? You know, have you done this pace in your training and have you been able to do it for a full half marathon or near to it? So, so these are things we're asking in our race plan so that when you come to execute, you are clear on, on what your capacity is, what your capabilities are, what your current form is. And I had a great conversation with him, one of the other marathon runners. And his goal was trying to get as close to four hours as he possibly could. And we both agreed that he was about a 405. And I said to him, and this is where other key topics come into it. Look, it's actually going to be a northerly on this day. And, and from Elwood all the way back to the finish line, which is, you know, 40, 50 minutes of running. It's a 25 kilometer headwind, and at the end of Melbourne, you've got to run through some hills. So the finish in this race is super hard for someone who's actually trying to run, you know, four or five minutes better than their probable form at the moment. And so he took that on board and I said to him, look, you know, if you feel good early, you can, and you're running at that around that 4 to 4:05 hour mark pace that, you know, somewhere around that 540 to 550 pace. And if you're feeling good then, then you know, it's okay to go for it, you know, have that freedom. You, you make that decision, but you have to suffer the consequences of that decision. And, and if, if you, if you get ahead of yourself, you know, it could blow out to 415. And, and my question is, are you happy with that? And, and yeah, he was really on board with that and he said, well, let's just see how I go. And, and you know, he, he tried his best to get as close as he could and then obviously, you know, he experienced exactly what we talked about with the headwind and, and he held it together and still ran a 4 9, 410 with that, that tough finish. And, and I was super proud of that effort as much as I was with the people who negative splitted because we had a good discussion pre race about the plan and about the execution and, and they're good things that you can both agree to. Look, we, we did our best and we didn't leave anything out there. Sure it doesn't go along with the principle of negative split, but every person has a different place where they're coming from and he understood that he didn't quite have enough time in this preparation period so they're great examples of next time he has a go at this. He's going to give him more time with those longer runs and he will, I have no doubt. I can't wait to tell his story. He will be running sub four hours because he's really learned a lot from the conditions, his preparation and his race plan and his execution. Just such a good learning experience for him. He's never run a marathon before so it was a really fantastic outcome. Even though he didn't get the time he wanted, the post race discussion was terrific. Happy with having a crack, didn't leave anything out there. Understands the difference between a positive and a negative split and has felt it now and has experienced it and doesn't like that experience. And even though he ran beautifully for 30 to 35k, you know, it was only the last little bit that he slowed off and look, other things happen like he got a stitch and that whenever you get a stitch of for those who've had it, it's very difficult to run when you, when you're feeling uncomfortable. But, but yeah, that's another example of things that you have to consider and, and the conditions on the Day, you know, you. If you want to come home strong, well, on a race course where that's the hardest part of the course, you really have to think differently about, can I. Can I hold the pace rather than coming home stronger? And that's a key thing that people. Oh, look, I tried to run a negative split, but I couldn't. Well, let's have a look at the course. Was it harder in the second half? Was it windier? Was it hillier? And they're the things that we're giving as exemptions for not being a negative split. And it's okay to run really close to positive. Positive where you're within a minute or two when the second half of the course is harder. But you've got to take all those things into consideration and not just have a blanket. I want to do a negative split. You know, that's probably not possible. And we wouldn't encourage that sometimes because we know that you can't run the same pace into a headwind as you can in a tailwind. So the expectation is that you wouldn't run faster in the tailwind to get ahead of yourself, because that's going to actually blow you up as well. You're running faster than the pace you should be. So just unfortunate that some courses on the day are harder than others.

It's a little bit different to the bike, isn't it? You know, with the bike, you can ride much faster speed because the wind's pushing you. And so the gap between headwind and tailwind is a lot more. But that theory doesn't apply. We talk about that a lot where you ride lower power with a tailwind, but your speed is quite fast, whereas with a headwind, you don't want to put. You still want to maintain your effort relatively low. If you overdo it because you think you've got a tailwind trying to get a buffer of time, then you will still blow yourself up because you're the one doing all the effort in the run compared to the bike where it gets really pushed by the tailwind. So I wanted to mention that point. Did you have something to add there?

No, I totally agree. It's easier to go ride faster in a tailwind because the effort is really low.

Yes.

But when you're a runner, there's still an effort to run faster than your pace. You're above your pace, whereas as a rider in a tailwind, you're not near your pace. We're actually encouraging you to be lower power.

Exactly. Yep. So, look, that's a really key Point and why you talk about understanding the course requirements because you know, everyone has these goals of sub 4 hours or sub 340 or sub 3 hours. But you might predict through our training, testing and calculations that you're about a 4 or 5 runner, like you did with this athlete. But it depends on how you test. You know, if you test it on a course similar to the course conditions, then you can say that's accurate. But if you tested that on flat ground now, knowing that the course is a bit tougher, you go, well, you're probably further away from four hours than you think because the back end of the course is tough, like you just mentioned. And look, it is a tail as old as time going out too hard. And we speak about this a lot and I don't want to bore the listeners with it, but we have to say that we keep mentioning it because we have direct conversations with athletes and any athletes that have had this conversation with us will laugh. Now, where we drill into them, your first K has to be your slowest. We want you to negative split here and on the phone, they'll nod. Yep, yep. I'm going to go out in this pace. It's 15 seconds slower than my target pace. I'm going to really cruise the first K. And then they finish the race and call us up and say, I don't know what happened, but you're going to be angry at me. Because the first K wasn't the slightest. And we've literally had the conversation an hour before the race or a day before the race or that week, and then they go out and do the opposite. And it's no fault of anyone. We get caught up in the emotions. My friend said exactly this. He texted me and said, I just got caught up in the excitement. I told you beforehand I wasn't going to do that. I just got so caught up in the excitement and it's just hilarious. But the reason we want to go on about it is because we want to dive deeper into the aspects of. We get it, Jordan. We don't. We want you to split. Don't go out too hard. But let's go into what does that actually mean for a pacing plan. I love this example you just gave because some people would argue and you used the word buffer before that. They want to go out hard and have a buffer at the end. I've seen that argument a lot and just hang on. And what would you say to that argument about pacing?

It just doesn't work. It's like, ask your mate who you didn't coach, you were just asking him about information about his plan and his preparation and trying to stay silent just to, not to put him off. And he'd listen to our podcast and, and he was trying to do 3 hours 30 and, and of course he started off way faster than 3 hours 30, like significantly faster. And, and he's just had a horrendous day. Tell me how much off that 3:30 did he finish?

Yeah, he ended up at 3:54. And funnily enough, he had two goals. He said, you know, run that 3:30 pace. And he said at a worst case scenario, one run under four hours. I was going, that's a big discrepancy. You really have to have a horrible time. And the only way you can have that time is if you're trying to run at a pace that is unachievable and you blow up so bad that you hang on to four hours. And in fact that's what he did. So.

Yeah. So the first thing we want to say is it's just not enjoyable. And you know, when you spoke to him, he said it was the hardest thing he's ever experienced. And it doesn't have to be like that. That's what I'm doing, that's what I'm trying to get across and that's what you're supporting me with. It doesn't have to be like that. If you get all those things right, you know, the conditions, the nutrition, your race plan, your execution, your race preparation. So you have to go in with this, this, this event with a really sound and realistic understanding of your current form. And that's the thing that's going to make or break you. If you haven't got a realistic understanding of where your form is, then you will select a pace that's not manageable and you will not have any other outcome except for the worst outcome. And we're digging a lot onto this, the negativity. I'm actually, I'm wanting people to think more the other way, celebrate the everybody who got it right. And we want to encourage more people to be in that, that group. And unfortunately, when I look at the race, I see 90% of the people having that horrible experience and I see 10% of the people celebrating how great marathon running is and can't wait for the next one next weekend. You know, that's how excited they are. I want to do another one and I just don't, I want to get this message across. I don't care how you look at it, which angle you come from. If you just stick with these basic principles that we're talking about, you will have the experience that is such a fantastic day. And know marathon running is a big day. It's. It's something that you'll, you know, not do too many of. And there are exceptions to that. People have done 20 or 30. I saw one guy come through the finish and his first marathon. He's a Spartan. And for those who don't know what a Spartan is in, in Melbourne, the. The people who've done every race since the inception, I think it was 1984, was the very first Melbourne marathon. So he's done every race. And this is his 40th marathon. So he's done. So 1984 to 2024 is 40 marathons. And he wears a Spartan top. And I don't know what time he came in, but he was still running, which was great. But, you know, that's an example of someone who's been able to do so many marathons, and yet over that journey, I would love to know whether each of those marathons he's learned any lessons about how to execute. And it all comes down to enjoyment is highly. The coefficient is highly relatable to your execution and your race plan.

I think that's such a brilliant point. And there's this notion that because the back end of a marathon is so tough for people and if you've paced it incorrectly, back end of any race is just absolutely brutal. And there's this really good sense of accomplishment and sense of triumph when you are in that much hurt and you push through, you do finish feeling pretty proud of yourself. And as you should, because you are in the hurt locker, you are mentally pushed as much as physically. And to get through that, there is this huge sense of accomplishment. But the point you're making is that it actually doesn't have to be that hard. You're making it harder on yourself than it needs to be. And that feeling that the people get when they pace it properly and negative split, it's actually mentally not as challenging, which sounds really weird to say, and therefore more enjoyable. And then when you finish with that, with that feeling of, I probably could have gone a little bit more, you know, any race doesn't have to be that feeling of this incredible thing that you couldn't get over. In fact, it shouldn't be. It should be a more enjoyable experience when you've paced it properly, you feel so strong coming home. And that actually should be the experience which a lot of people don't get A lot of people think it's supposed to be the hardest thing you'll ever do and the hardest mental thing you'll ever do. It's a really nuanced thing I'm talking about there, but it's not supposed to be that ridiculous tough kind of push through thing.

Look, don't get me wrong, you will be challenged. You know, it is a hard thing to finish. Whether you've, whether you got the pacing right or wrong, it is still hard to finish. But my, my message is if, if you be more disciplined and, and take on the challenge of holding back, that's a challenge in itself. In some of these events where there's 10,000 people running around you bumper to bumper, it's a challenge to let them run around you whilst you're slowing down your pace. And that takes discipline. And I'd rather you concentrated really hard early so that you set yourself up for the glory of the second half. And all those people who are knocking you over on their way past you early, you know, you almost feel like yelling at them all now. Who's knocking who over? You know, as you're running past every one of those people who have, who've gone ahead of their, of their capacity, their ability, their pacing. And that's the challenge, I would say, is the thing that people should concentrate more on is getting the start right and set yourself up and then you can run the pace that you're meant to run. And what we're all trying to do, run faster at the end. You know, I'm not saying that's what's going to happen in a marathon, but, but you want to hold onto your pace and if you've done it really well, you can actually run slightly faster. Even the most elite runners at the world level are doing that. So, you know, we can drag out 1500 meters. Inger Britzen's where he jogs the first lap and he, you know, negative splits every, every lap in a 1500 from that point on. You know, there's, there's millions of examples and people will say, but there's other examples of people who go out hard and still get the result they want. But I would say to them they could actually get better results if they didn't race like that. And so the point of this podcast is to congratulate people who have actually got all those things really well done because they're in the minority. And I think if we can spread the message to get more people in that minority and so that becomes the majority, I think we've achieved something.

And so I want to finish by dissecting the race plan part and getting the nuance right of, of how to know exactly where you sit and getting your ambition and ability aligned and not. And not confused, as you say. So that that conversation you had with that athlete around the fact that they were probably a 405 runner and they really had this goal of wanting to go into four hours and you had to have a really specific conversation around. Look, it doesn't seem like much of a difference, but you, I really think the top of your range is, is kind of 405, maybe 403. But Bob in the range is 408, 410. And that's where you can really accurately predict where their ability is. And you had to. And to an athlete that might sound like, well, if I'm right there, surely I can just dip under four hours if I really have a good race or put. And you're having to say, actually no, I really think the top of Your range is 4 or 5 ish, 403 ish. And if you try and dip under four hours, it's going to ruin your race. So kind of talk us through that chat with the athlete. I think it's really good for people to understand that it's at that level when it's. If you're aiming for three going down to 340 or going under four hours, 30 or under five hours, you know, a couple of minutes might not seem like that much. But you've really got to be quite specific with your own race plan and what your actual ability is.

And to be fair, Mitch was on board with everything. And we had a great conversation because we went through all the scenarios. Okay, let's, let's work out if you run, if you ran 5:40 pace, that's going to give you a 3:58, 3 hour 58. And all the training we've done, you've done lots of 540 for 25k, 30k, 32k. You've done some good stuff. But we haven't done it for long enough. We haven't had enough preparation. I'm pointing out things about the preparation in our decision making. And he's saying, yeah, yeah, I'm saying, look, you know, we've only been going this amount of time. Have we had longer period, I would have more confidence that you could actually sustain this for the whole 42k. But we haven't actually been able to measure that. So that's against you. And then, you know, we went through what happens if you do do this, are you okay with, with a bit of a blow up where you could end up with 4:10 or 4:11 and you know he's going to have to, he's going to have to make that decision. I can't, I can only give him the scenarios. And, and I'm saying if you just ran 4:45, sorry, 5:45 to 5:50, you will end up with a 404 or four hours, five minute. And I'm throwing numbers out here for those people just, just to give you an idea of the difference between 10 seconds per K or 5 seconds per K adds minutes at the end and it doesn't seem much as you said before. And so once he understands that then he's on board with, okay, I've got a decision to make and I can go in with. The mindset is, you know, of course you're going to feel fresh early and because you've tapered and you're ready for the event and so you're going to feel like, oh, I can do this but the decision can't be in the first 5k. The decision has to be somewhere around 25 to 30k about how you're coping with the pace that you've been running. And to his credit, he was running 545s to 550s quite, quite confidently until that, you know, mid-30s K mark. And then, and then he had the realization straight away that, you know, I've got a stitch and I can hardly, I can hardly actually concentrate but, but I am feeling tired and I know the headwinds coming and the hills. And so he made that decision that, you know, I've now got to hang on to this. I can't actually run faster and, and what a great outcome because he knew all those scenarios and his next job was right. I've got to hang tough here and I've got to get to the finish and not end up with a 420 which could happen if you just get it slightly wrong and that's the consequence. And so the conversation's great. We're going backwards and forwards about what happens if you do this, what happens if I do this. And so he's really clear and he goes in to the race with an ability to adjust his race plan as he's going and that's what we want everybody to do. You can't go in with plan A and not have any backups with whatever's happening. What happens if you don't get any nutrition because you've dropped a cup or you've missed your personal needs bag or you dropped your gels. You have to come up with some other method to adjust your plan and strategy. And so we're not making it up as we go, but we've got these scenarios already in our mind in case this happens. What do we do? What's our mindset? And the mindset is if you do get into that situation where you're Jesus, getting hard now, that's where you got to stand up and be counted. That's where it's. Even though you get to the end and you're not that happy with 409 or 410 compared to your 404, but you had a go, so you got some satisfaction there. You're pleased and proud that you hung on and gutsed it out. And now that gives you that mental strength to know that if I get the training right and give myself more time to prepare for this, you know, I can do what I want to do, which is break that four hours. And I remember we did a podcast many, many years ago. We've been right at the start with, with Daniel and he had three goes three years to break three hours. And he ran a 3 hour 30 seconds. He ran a 3 hour 1 minute and 30 and he ran a 3:02 and then finally around a 258 at the at Melbourne. Ironically, he'd run the Gold coast and he'd run a couple of other marathons and, and just, you know, differences of temperatures just prevented him from going under that. But he kept persevering and you know, it was. It took three years to get that, that unbelievable satisfaction of achieving the goal. And that's what, that's what sometimes it takes, you know, you just don't expect on your first go to hit your target straight away. You want to and you're trying to. Your goal is to. But sometimes these things take time. And I just encourage everybody who's had a poor performance on the weekend. And I know we didn't want to talk about the negative, we want to talk about and highlight the positive. People who ran so beautifully, but those who didn't. If you can learn some lessons about what you did and those conversations you have, whether it's just by yourself as you're coaching yourself or with your coach, to know that, you know, what am I capable of doing and understanding where your form is and making sure that your decision making is based around realistic, current expectations, not what you want to do.

I just love that conversation you had. And I think it's really telling of the thought process that all athletes and coaches should be going through and addressing all scenarios. And yeah, just, it's hard to let go of a goal in your head when you go, I really wanted to hit this. I really wanted to go on a three, 30 or four hours. I've had that in my mind for months. You know, it's hard for your ego to let go of that. But yeah, you've got to look at your form, look at your experience. As you said, if it's your first marathon, look at the course and go, this is a pretty tough course to run a PB on or go above your limits. If it was a fast, flat course, maybe you could say to yourself, oh, it's a good, it's a good time to try and go for something here. But when it's going to be a tough course, when, as you mentioned, at the very start with the, with the big north headwind, that's probably going to end up in a slower day. So it's not the day that you're going to run probably top of your range. You probably have to expect to run or finish up with middle of the range. Yeah, there's all these things.

Yeah, there's, there's a whole lot of things. When you look at the elite runners on the day, their times were very slow compared to, compared to what the expectations were. And you know, some of the other good age group runners, they, they found it a tough day. So you've got to factor that into your overall time as well. Don't take away from the, the guys who actually really, you know, negative splitters. And we had several of them we haven't even talked about Craig and Leanne who ran, you know, and just unbelievable times. And in the half marathon we had all three people, you know, negative split. So out of our community of athletes, we had, you know, some outstanding performances, which, you know, the majority of our athletes did. And that's ironic because the majority of athletes didn't overall in the event. So that's what I'm most proud of. And that's the kind of, the message is if you can prepare and plan the way that you should be, the outcome will be very close to what you're trying to achieve.

Yeah, I think that's a good point to finish off on is that our athletes who had the most enjoyable experience in race day, in the half or the marrow, either negative splitted or it was equal. And when we say negative split, we're not trying to say run three minutes faster in the second half and the first half, we hear that just mean run the same time or run fractionally quicker but holding on at the same time, especially in this kind of course, which we've mentioned, would have been an incredible effort. And if you're fractionally slower, we probably count that as a very well paced run as well, because you can expect the back end to be slower. So if you're within a minute or so, a minute and a half of that first half, then you've probably still executed pretty well. And that's that holding the pace that you were talking about, where we're not expecting you to lift the pace by 10 seconds per km in the last few kilometers. Often you're just talking about lifting the effort to hold the pace and maintain the pace. And that's kind of the key to good running at the back end of any race, including triathlons.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And look, I've got a little mini rule that, you know, someone who blows out more than 30 seconds per km has had an absolute blowout. People who can, who can hold on to anything under that, they're still challenging themselves to manage it. But, you know, once you go over 30 seconds, you know, it quickly becomes a minute per kilometer and all of a sudden you've lost 30 minutes over the last 10 kilometers, or, you know, I've lost even 20 kilometers, you're losing, you know, if you lose, if you lose two minutes per kilometer, which is when you do what you do when you walk, and it could end up being 30 or 40 minutes slower than you wanted to. So again, not to finish on the negative note, but I just want people to see that there are better ways of achieving it. And look, the. The thing that amazes me is the popularity of running again, which is, you know, not seen since I remember in the 80s. It was just a boom thing to do. And I'm loving the fact that people are getting out there and running. And I just want people to have a better experience, actually, and enjoy the races for what they are. It's great to see people having a crack, but if they just got some better advice, it would be far more enjoyable experience for most people.

That's it for this episode. As you said at the start, there are so many stories behind the marathon, so we really wanted to dissect it and chat about a few different things. If you've enjoyed it and if you want help being coached to your own marathon, whether that's any running event, solo or any running inside of triathlon, including the Marathon and the Ironman. Then make sure you go to trivelocoaching.com and apply for our coaching services there. Thank you very much for listening and we'll see you next time. Sam.