My First Marathon (what I did right and wrong)

On October 6th, 2024 I ran my first marathon. More specifically, the EDP Lisbon Marathon.

Apart from being my first marathon, it was also special because I ran it with my dad (he has done over 30 of them, so he's fairly expert).

It's safe to say it was a mix of emotions and feelings, but let's go step by step.

My Background

Before getting into my training, I think it makes sense to give some sort of context of who I am and my fitness levels.

Growing up in Italy, I played football since I was a kid, so I have always been active.

However, running alone was not for me, I always found it boring and just a pain overall.

This was because every time I went for runs, I would always go all out (you shouldn't) and would feel terrible after them.

When I stopped playing football for a team (I still play with friends around once or twice a week) I joined the gym.

But apart from playing football with friends, I did not really do any cardio.

Now that you have some more informations, we can go into how I approached my "training" for this marathon.

Training

I started "training" for this marathon in May 2024 (24 weeks before the marathon). At that point, I did not even know that I was going to run the Lisbon Marathon, I just knew I was going to run a marathon at some point in the future and because of that, I started running.

No training plan, nothing, just getting out of my house and running at a decent pace for me.

May 2024 - 20 Weeks Before The Race

• 12 Runs
• 83K
• 5' 51'' Average Pace
• 8h:06m:07s Spent Running

That was my first run, 4.26K at a 6' 05'' pace. Not really that proud of it but you have to get started somewhere, right?

Overall in May I ran a total of 83K with only 2 "long" runs (which were back-to-back proving I did not really know what I was doing)

June 2024 - 16 Weeks Before The Race

• 7 Runs
• 63.9K
• 5' 58'' Average Pace
• 6h:21m:20s Spent Running

Moving on to June, you would think I would have increased my distance for the month right? Wrong.

In June I ran a total of 63.9K - why?

I don't like excuses, I think I was mostly lazy. I had my final exams before my graduation from my Bachelor during that period but I still could have put more Kilometers in (and should have).

But the thing we can notice from the runs in June is that there were way less runs than May but with longer distances (still not longer than 12K though).

July & August 2024 - 8 Weeks Before the Race

• 9 Runs
• 54K
• 6' 13'' Average Pace
• 5h:42m:41s Spent Running

Why am I combining July & August?

Look for yourself:

As you can see I did very few runs in July and close to none in August.

I admit that summer really hit. After graduating in July all I wanted was to relax and chill.

And that is what I did.

At this point I even knew that I had the Marathon coming up because I had already signed up for it.

These months were the ones where I should have put the most work in and instead, they were my worst months.

This will bite back at the marathon.

September 2024 - 4 Weeks Before The Race

• 16 Runs
• 166.2K
• 6' 28'' Average Pace
• 17h:54m:27s Spent Running

We finally arrived to September (a month I am more proud of).

I move to Lisbon to start my Master's Degree and realize I have to start taking running seriously if I do not want to embarrass at the Marathon.

And I did, I took it more seriously.

I increased the distance by a lot, but I also slowed the pace down a little bit.

Why? Because I discovered Zone 2 Training and felt amazing doing this method.

I think this video explains it perfectly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taO8kKsx448&pp=ygUOem9uZSAyIHJ1bm5pbmc%3D

I would recommend you give this a watch if you are interested in how to do it yourself as well.

October 2024 - Marathon Month

The Marathon was on the 6th of October, so I only did 3 runs before it in October just to keep my fitness good while not stressing the legs too much.

First run was 5.2K, then 5.9K and 7K on Friday, with the marathon being on Sunday.

I can say I felt really good before the marathon, all the distance and endurance I built up during September made me somewhat confident that I would achieve my goal of running it in <4:00:00.

Have I made it?

Marathon Day

The race started at 8AM, so I woke up at 5AM to have breakfast.

Breakfast before the marathon

First thing you should not do is experiment things on marathon day. And how did I start this day? New type of breakfast!

For the first time in my life I had Peanut Butter (in general).

My breakfast was 2 PB toasts and 2 toasts with ham.

I got lucky I did not have any stomach problems during the marathon, because I did not know how my body would respond to this type of breakfast.

I can overall say that this breakfast was good and now I have Peanut Butter with honey every morning!

But again, please do not experiment on marathon day.

Start of the Marathon

We got to the starting line at 7AM, 1 hour before race start.

And it was quite nice seeing for the first time all those runners preparing for a marathon.

After a toilet stop and dropping our bags off it was go time.

KM 1 to KM 14

For the first 14 Kilometers I was feeling extremely good. I was so confident I would hit my goal.

With paces going from 5' 03'' / KM to 5' 39'' / KM. My target pace was 5' 40'' to do the marathon in less than 4 hours so I was going way faster than I should have.

KM 15 to KM 28

I can still say I felt relatively good up until KM 28.

I was keeping my pace strong and also took my first gel at KM 21.

But what was going to happen next I could not have expected it

KM 29 to KM 42.2 - The Wall

I can also proudly say that I experienced "the wall".

Which is basically when your body just cannot handle the load anymore.

I thought that if anything was going to happen to me at a marathon, that it would have been because I did not have breath and had to stop.

But the complete opposite happened here.

The aerobic base I built mainly in September paid off, I was feeling extremely good breath wise.

But my legs..

My right leg completely gave up at one point.

First my quad and my knee after. I could not complete a full kilometer running from that point on.

I had to walk for a few minutes, then run again for a few minutes up until the finish line.

This was something I never experience before and was totally unprepared for.

The lack of training came back to bite and I was not ready.

And so sadly, my pace went off completely. After getting surpassed by the 4h pacer, I felt extremely bad: I saw my goal pass by me and there was nothing I could do about it.

My final race time was: 4h:28m:45s

Thoughts after the marathon

First of all, after this marathon and the preparation that came with it, I fell in love for running, so it's safe to say I will run another marathon soon, probably in March or April of 2025.

Looking back at it, my preparation was not enough. I did not have enough KM on my legs to be able to do a marathon at the pace I wanted to.

It still felt amazing to cross the finish line, it's an amazing sensation.

For the next marathon, I will definitely be more prepared and will be following a training plan in order to hit my goal (sub 4 hours).

If you are in doubt on whether you should run your first marathon or not, do it! It's gonna change your life.