I think the first marathon anyone does, who doesn’t have lots of prior running experience, is going to be a big learning moment. I learned a lot during the training and running of this first marathon that I will know for future races.
- Fueling in the days leading up is very important.
- Electrolytes before, starting up to 72 hours before the race.
- I need to run even more miles to be fit enough to run all 26.2 confidently. My next block, I want to try to be in the 50-60 mile per week range. In the meantime, I’m going to try to bring up the weekly mileage I can do easily to keep my aerobic base ready.
- I was losing steam in my training runs around 16–18 miles, and I found the same to be true in the race. I think this isn’t so much a mental block, but I need to run more milage to be able to get around this. At least for the pace I want to run.
- Long runs are the most important workouts of marathon training (at least for your first one); you need to get used to being on your feet running for 3+ hours.