We did it again, baby!

Training block

It had been a while since I last had such a great training block. I must say, this was a near-perfect marathon training block. During those 3 months, I suffered absolutely no injuries. I ran between 5 and 7 times per week most weeks, some days running twice.

The biggest challenge was actually being on holiday abroad for 2.5 weeks, during weeks W-5, W-4, and W-3 — the three most intense weeks before the 3-week taper. I had to rearrange my schedule and make room for travel days or special events, like attending a wedding. One week I ran Monday through Friday non-stop, and had Saturday AND Sunday off, for example. Another week, I had to run twice on the same day, once in the morning and once in the evening, so as to free up another day. Despite staying at different places over those 2.5 weeks abroad, I still managed to follow my plan and not skip any sessions.

My highest mileage over any 7-day period reached 110 kilometers! A new record for me.

All of that meant that the last weeks of August were very intense, both physically and mentally (the mental load of having to train while limiting its impact on the people around me, while also allowing myself to rest after strenuous sessions). It showed through my HRV: Garmin told me many times that I was strained because of a low HRV over multiple days. My HRV was actually completely out of range the last 3 weeks leading up to the marathon, right after the holidays. Yet, I was in the shape of my life!

In weeks W-2 and W-1, I maintained the same number of runs. I only reduced the overall mileage and cut down on some intensity.

Sunday 20th of September, exactly one week before the race, I woke up sick. A proper cold. Scratchy throat, runny nose, feeling quite weak, terrible sleep because of that. No fever though. That day, I had a 20-km run planned. I had to skip it. Damn! Such bad luck! That Sunday was horrendous. Motivation at its lowest.

Race week

Same thing the next day, no running, I was still feeling quite sick. Things improved a lot on Tuesday, also thanks to a much much better night's sleep. I ended up moving my Monday run to Tuesday. From Wednesday on, I felt fine-ish again, except for my nose which remained partly blocked. I then ran my Wednesday run on Thursday, picked up my bib number the same day and rested on Friday. Saturday I ran 20 minutes, slowly.

Overall, I felt sluggish and weak all week but fortunately never had a fever. It was just a bad cold, really.

I slept ok all week, never more than 8 hours, usually a little over 7 hours, partly due to my scratchy throat that would wake me up at night. From Saturday night into Sunday, I slept a little less than 5 hours and woke up twice to empty my bladder. As always, finding sleep was difficult. But also, having a cold and therefore coughing + blowing my nose often somehow made me dehydrated, so I made sure to stay hydrated.

Carb loading

My plan was to carb load only on Friday and Saturday, as I always find doing it over 3 days is a bit much. On Friday, I cut back significantly on veggies and fiber, while eating almost exclusively pasta/rice/potatoes. Saturday no veggies, no fruits, nothing fatty.

This time around, though, I felt like I had screwed it up. I weighed myself on Friday and Saturday morning: the exact same weight, and the lowest in 6 months! Surely I was not eating enough... On Saturday night I had about 100 grams of rice + 100 grams of pasta with tomato sauce + 250g of Speisequark with maple syrup and a banana. Sounds like enough, but I actually went to bed that night almost feeling hungry! Despite having drunk maltodextrin powder all day + eaten a bag of candy.

Race day

Alarm clock set for 7:05. Got up after not having slept enough but oddly, I felt energetic. Coffee, half a Gatosport + a banana for breakfast. Pit stop on the toilet and at 7:45 I was out the door, on my bike, heading out to the Brandenburger Tor. I met up with a friend on the way. We parked our bikes there at 8:15 and I started warming up, running some strides in the street. We met another friend at last and made our way to the runners' area. We wished each other "good luck" around 8:30 and I started jogging towards my corral C. I took one last piss in the bushes and entered the corral about 3 minutes before the start. The famous "Sirius" song by The Alan Parsons Project started blasting through the loudspeakers. Once again, I reminded myself how lucky I was to be there. I seized the moment and enjoyed every second leading up to the start.

The starting pistol went off at 8:45. I kept jumping to maintain a high heart rate. I crossed the start line 8 minutes later.

I'll keep this short: the first half of the marathon felt effortless. Almost easy. I was running at a pace between 4'05"/km and 4'10"/km, exactly as planned, en route to a sub-three-hour marathon. Running at that pace felt so much easier when surrounded by people running at the same pace than when training alone.

Things started to go south shortly after the 28th km mark. I started having bad stomach cramps. Pretty high in the belly, I guess somewhere right after the stomach exit. Definitely not near the other exit. I'm normally quite used to having those. I've experienced such pain many times in the past, while running half marathons or full marathons. It usually goes away by itself, or I sometimes have to contract my abs to help it go away. Not this time. It got quite painful and simply would not go away. It got so bad that I eventually had to stop running altogether and start massaging my stomach. I waited half a minute until the pain finally stopped. I then resumed running at a pretty good pace but shortly after, it came back. Damn!

It kept coming back multiple times between km 28 and 40. I quickly realized that drinking water was helping a lot — it would delay the pain.

I don't recall exactly how often I had to come to a complete stop, but I guess at least 4 or 5 times. Most times I had to massage my stomach. Some other times, I would just slow down like crazy at aid stations, and drink many glasses of water. Sometimes 3 or 4 full glasses of water at a single aid station. I guess my stomach was too full of gels and simply needed more water to help move everything downward. My nutrition plan had always worked for previous races, not this time around. One Maurten gel every 20 minutes was simply too much. I think I ate no gels at all in the last 10 km, in an attempt to improve the situation.

Up until km 35, I was still on track for a sub-3-hour time. But at some point shortly after, I realized I was not gonna make it and made peace with it. Too bad! I had just promised myself an hour earlier that I'd get my time tattooed if I was gonna break 3 hours that day! 😆

The multiple starts and stops came at a cost: eventually, I was no longer able to get back up to speed. The more I stopped, the harder it became to get back to 4'10"/km. Eventually, I was only able to run between 4'20"/km and 4'35"/km. I was also feeling a tad short of breath at times, during this last part of the race. Or put differently, I was unable to take deep breaths. Can I blame having been sick all week? Maybe.

Weather-wise, it was A LOT better than last year's edition.

I like running under 15 degrees, that's where I perform the best, but this was very fine.

Anyway, after km 40, my stomach was back on track. Having drunk so much water but also having stopped eating gels surely did help. With the Brandenburger Tor in sight, I got my second wind! I accelerated and crossed the finish line in 3 hours, 3 minutes, and 33 seconds! Woohoo! 🎉

It turns out my carb loading was enough. It was light but I did not hit the wall. I did not feel like my legs were running out of energy at any point.

Once again, what a great experience! Running a marathon is second to none. The crowd, the people running, the atmosphere, the vibe during the entire race week. Sign me up again! I did not manage to run under 3 hours this time, perfect! That gives me another reason to come back! 😁

Things I should do differently next time

• My Decathlon running shorts are shit when wet, for example after running under a water sprinkler: they become heavy and take forever to dry. I need a pair that is lighter and faster to dry
• I should fuel more often during training, like during sessions longer than 1 hour. To recover faster from hard runs but also to train my gut
• Muscle strengthening (legs specifically of course)
• Eat a bit less frequently (every 25 mins instead of 20)
• Drink AT LEAST 2 full cups of water at every aid station
• Black toenail (massive blister under the nail, to be exact): first time I got one, not even the big toe. My shoes were not tight enough? Or maybe my socks are too thin/too old.