It has been a long time (almost 3 months) since I wrote my last piece on my journey to a sub 2:45 marathon. I ran the race in October 2021 and I’m already training for my next marathon in April 2022.

That aside, it is a worthwhile exercise to provide the final update, what I learned and my future goals.

First off, this story has a happy ending. I finished the Amsterdam Marathon in 2:44 which was amazing. There was still doubt in my mind as to whether I was capable of holding that pace on the day, and I had to fight right up until the last kilometre, but I made it.

With the sub 2:45 in the bag, I’ve set myself up for a bucket list goal of running the Berlin marathon.

Race Recap

The strange thing about training and racing is how you feel when running at a particular pace. In training, running at goal marathon pace feels so fast. On race day it feels, at least in the first half of the race, fairly comfortable.

That’s why when I lined up at the Amsterdam Olympic stadium I had my doubts. Could I really hold 3:54 min/km for 42.2km?

I’m going to keep this quick and say that the race, apart from one or two things, couldn’t have gone any better. Nutrition was on point. Conditions were perfect. My pacing was spot on. I raced within myself and maintained discipline throughout.

The only unfortunate thing was that my calves started to cramp at the 32km mark. This was frustrating because everything else felt so good. I’ve been in these situations many times before. In my less experienced days, I would have assumed my race was over. But I’ve learnt over the years that it’s important to keep going, to keep fighting.

Sometimes the cramp goes away. Sometimes you have to dig deep and grit your teeth right until the end. In almost all situations your body is capable of way more than you think.

That’s exactly what I did for 10km. I stopped three times to stretch my calf muscles but I kept going and with one kilometre to go I knew I was going to make it. At that point, the endorphins and adrenaline kicked in and the pain disappeared.

I’ll never forget that last kilometre.

Next Goal

I’m going big and I’m going sub 2:40. I know that I can do it. I’ve been running consistently and injury-free for a few years. I was on track for a low sub 2:40 marathon if it wasn’t for the cramp at the 32km mark.

I’ve picked Rotterdam in April as my next race. It’s a flat and fast course. With the strength training I’ve now incorporated into my training plan I believe that this is an achievable target. As a write this there are only 9-weeks to go, so lots of key training weeks ahead.

I won’t be giving a regular update on this race going forward. I’m writing a piece on my new strength training plan which I should post soon. Other than that I will write a post-race update depending on how everything goes on the day.