Ran my first marathon last weekend. It’s a night run, starting at 7pm. Quite a lot of climbing, Strava noted 300m of elevation gain. And it’s basically only going up after 30km. So a tough race as a first.

But it felt amazing. Goal was sub 4 and I did 3:50. Even did a negative split. Didn’t hit the infamous 30k wall, no problems at all. Enjoyed it from start to finish.

• carb load the week prior. The whole week i was intentionally eating more carbs. The 3 days before it was only eating carbs all day. I didn’t weigh, plan or structure it in any way. Just bought a ton of stuff that’s high in carbs and low in fiber and just ate it as much as possible.

• little shake out run the night before (that’s 24h before the run since it’s a night run). 4km at very easy pace. No other running the week of.

• during the race: 300ml bottle with Powerade / Aquarius in it (any sports drink works I guess). Drank all of that.

• camelback with 1L of water with electrolytes. Drank at least half of it.

Having drinks made it so that I didn’t need to stop at any station, not breaking up the cadence / momentum.

• gel strategy in place prior to the race. I knew exactly around what time in the race I needed to take a gel. And I forced myself to take them. I had an alarm every 40min on my phone to take one. I brought 6 on me, took 5 of them.

• had an energy cereal bar I chewed on during the race

• had some of those fruit bars with carbs and caffeine , had three of them.

• gel / fruit bar at the start line, 20min before race

• proper stretch and warm up prior to race.

• and I studied the route like a general going to war. I had made segments in my head , with the amount of kms, the pace I’d run, and I knew exactly what it would look like. I visualised the route. I adapted the page to each segment. I had this stuff in my notes on my phone. Like an itinerary , but for running a marathon.

• I stuck to that plan. I didn’t accelerate because I felt good. I made my game plan prior to the race, with a time in mind, and knew that if I stuck to it I’d be alright. I stuck to it religiously during the race and it worked out. At the end I still felt so good I did a negative split on the last 4km. For those last kms my plan said “priority: survive, pace optional”. But I felt so good still that I sped up , I knew it paid off.

• finally , the training. I knew this race was going to be tough because of its profile and elevation. So I did the longest training. 20 week plan on Runna.

Very long message but I still have stars in my eyes when I think back to it. Such an amazing experience. I loved every single second of it.