Marathon Tips or Tricks or Whatever you've learned

Hopefully your long runs have told you everything you need to know about the race   Body glide or vaseline EVERYWHERE is always a good plan   Okay, not everywhere...but anywhere you ever felt discomfort on your long runs.

Have you figured out a during race nutrition plan that you have tried on long runs?  You don't want your belly surprised by the stuff they have out on the course.

Pre-race routine...varies by people.  But tried and true lessons are:
1. Don't spend all day on your feet at packet pickup/expo the day before.
2. Get to the race site early on race day...always better to be standing around idle than rushing around panicky.
3. Night before meal and prerace meal should be something you had good results with in training.
4. Stay hydrated.
5. Have fun.

You forgot one Max- wear high heels and a wig

For the life of me I’m not sure what makes me this way but I’ve tried to keep the thought of a goal time out of my head and focus on fun and just run the race (Example: 1 Cor 9:24-27) BUT… I’ve got this goal of doing a sub 4 hour marathon and all my training is in that pace range… Just tell me to put this silly notion to bed and focus on finishing!!!

There is no such thing as putting time in the bank.  Any time saved over the first 20 miles, will likely be withdrawn at double the rate over the last 6 miles.  Pacing, Pacing, Pacing, can't emphasize it enough.  Drink every water stop, don't wait until you are thirsty. And most importantly, when you get to the finish line, wait a few seconds to stop your watch.  In 5 of my 10 marathons, I have finish line pictures of me looking down at my watch as I stop it.  DOH.

Chris

that is noted Jim

I wrote my target paces through out the race on my arm. It helped tremendously because although I may think that I can do the math during the race, at mile 23, I have a hard time even remembering my own name.

Stick to the plan...run a negative split.

Start slower than you think you should because that'll probably be your planned pace anyway  - you'll go faster with the excitement at the start.

There's no embarrassment in walking aid stations - I get more fluid in my mouth and it's a nice 20 second break that will help me go even faster later on.

If someone offers you beer at any point on the course, although it may sound so good and the perfect refreshment at the time, politely decline and stick to your favorite sports drink. You can have as many beers as you want after the race although they may now taste as good as during the race.

Good luck!

It’s sort of fun to look back to see how much I’ve gained in the past year in regards to personal fitness…. Before I got married I came from a power lifting background and would dabble in natural bodybuilding but after I got married (2 years ago) I went from a lean 180 to a chubby/fat 210. (dang that ice cream & pizza) A year after I was married I woke up and decided to change my physical appearance.

Started running a little but walking a ton due to the hound dog that you see on my blog (Lilly) It was the only way I could keep her under control was by walking her 3 miles in the morning.

After walking a ton I started running more and my mileage was up to about 20 miles a week so to help me keep motivated I decided on a 15k, after that I started to lose more weight (170lbs) cause I bumped up my weekly mileage.

Then decided to do a tri with group of my church friends but (this is a big but) I didn’t know how to swim… joined the masters swim at my local YMCA and after 3 months of drinking pool water I figured out how to swim (I tell people that I went from being able to swim 50m to 400m over night) I did my first tri in 1:08 which was disappointing but I finished the course and I tried to fight a good fight but jumping off the bike and running about killed me… (more bricks 4 me)

During the training for the tri I decided to train for a marathon thus is my story to date.

Eric

P.S.

Thanks for all the help and I will give you my results from this weeks 20 miler and race day