Please, somebody put me out of my misery and tell what I’m doing wrong in the marathon.

For what it's worth, on the kind of mileage you're doing I only managed to run in the 3:20s. I got a lot faster by running a lot more and doing it year round, not just in a marathon build up. This isn't a prescription, just something to think about. I thought that as a runner I sucked at everything, not just marathons, and needed to train a lot more than most people did.

One thing I figured out about marathons was that I NEVER got to a time goal that I'd set. I got well under three hours eventually but not by setting it as a goal. The only goal like thing I did was to decide to run hard, make an honest effort to finish, and hope I'd do so in a time that was a bit faster than my last one. I didn't figure this out until it was much too late in terms of getting overall PBs. When I had specific time goals I started races paying attention to splits right from the start and I think I wasted energy doing that which cost me later on.

You might want to find another marathon once you've recovered from this one and run it with no time goal. Just give it your best shot and see where that lands you.

What was your carb-load like for the days before the race?

If you look at the recommended amounts for your body weight, while avoiding fibre, fat and lowering protein, it is not easy and not necessarily enjoyable. An extra potion of pasta the night before is almost pointless.

My best guess is that you ran too many and too long of long runs.

Gonna piggy back on this but I believe the Daniel's Running Formula has a great section about how to prepare for the week of the race. Two days before the race, crush that big bowl of pasta and protein at dinner, but the actual day before the race is just normal meals (and absolutely no vegetables). My two best half and full marathons came following that rule so I've stuck with it.

I've also followed a two week taper. If you are running 70mpw, the second to last week is 50 miles, and race week is something like 30 miles including the half marathon or 45 if you are doing the full. Last of your V02max work is 10 to 11 days before the race.

the marathon is not a normal event. It's not something that you just do the training and should improve at. Racing a marathon is an extreme event. It's not advertised that way but it is. It's outside the bounds of what normal people can do well.

You may just stink at the marathon because it's not a normal thing for a human body to do and you don't have the weird adaptation that makes you good at it.

I quit the beasts because I too stunk at the marathon. I was much better at shorter distances.

Point is - there may not be a 'fix my training' solution to the problem.

As is typical in these threads, every runner will give you what worked for them, but we're all a little different. For every runner who has trained and hit their goals at the marathon, there exist dozens who never did in spite of best efforts.

My race times match with OP pretty closely. 19:30 5K, 39:20 10K, 1:26 HM, good performances (for an average Joe) at odd 10 milers and such, but the best I ever mustered, in 15 marathons, was 3:15 on a net downhill course. And that was an all-out effort, barely qualifying for Boston while feeling like I was on fire to get to the finish line with seconds to spare. Barely qualifying for Boston was my absolute peak, and that time wouldn't sniff a spot at Boston anymore.

I always used Daniels plans for my best efforts, although I suspect that I didn't run enough 20+ milers, because he advocated for limiting long runs to 2.5 hours for most runners if I remember correctly. Otherwise, I hit paces and distances religiously and peaked at 90+ mile weeks several times during these plans.

I have mostly gotten past the fact that while I LOVE the marathon, I'm just not that good at it. I run in the vast flow of mid packers out there, doing my best, and love it. It's possible that my body, in some way, and many runners' bodies, in some way, are just not well suited to covering 26.2 miles fast. I can run them with little drama anymore, which is nice in itself, but the good relative performance? Nope.

The most relevant bit of all of this might be that for the OP, and for others including me, if we wanted to compete against our age group, we'd focus on the shorter stuff. I don't care anymore and love the challenge of the never-quite-perfect marathon effort, so I accept that I'm a mid packer.

I wouldn't be so quick to rule out nutrition. Some gels don't have tons of carbs in them when you need 60-90g carb/hour. Fluids should be ~24oz/hr. +/- 8oz. Maybe up to 1000mg/sodium for every 32oz of fluids you consume. Idk how much you drank during the race but my guess is you might have been short on some of these things.

Other than that 80k-110k/week is good but still on the lower side for marathon training. 18 weeks is a long marathon build & stress/travel are real. You could probably find a later season marathon on a limited build & crush it.

If it makes you feel better, you weren't the only one. I went through the half at just under 1:35 and finished in 3:23:xx. I was trying to figure out what went wrong as this was the best block of training I ever had. I hit my workouts, I was running 60 miles per week and I felt I was able to run 3:05-3:10. Maybe I overestimated my abilities but my issue yesterday was hamstring spasms which started at mile 18.

I am a big dude at 6'6 200 and my body runs abnormally hot. I was pouring cups of water on my head from the very beginning and even ditched my singlet at the half. I did not think the conditions were that great. One thing I noticed was there were no electrolytes on the course yesterday. The Maurten 160 mix has 1 gram of salt in a serving which by no means is enough to replace what is lost during a marathon. Especially for a heavy sweater like myself. I think it's a rookie mistake on my part that I didn't have salt pills or electrolytes but medical on at mile 22 did not have anything and that's unacceptable when you are a WMM race. I was lucky that a guy who came up to me had salt tablets and heard me asking around. It's too bad that it took me 3 miles to get something in my system but alas it is what it is. I shuffled across the line and collapsed afterwards and was taken into medical but am doing better now. I was really hopeful for a huge breakthrough yesterday and it didn't happen. Just curious did you bonk or did you cramp up. I don't feel like I bonked, I simply couldn't run for more than 400m before I seized up.

It was an incredible race to be part of with Kipchoge shattering his own WR and my fitness gained from this summer isn't going anywhere.

My advice - find a cold marathon and let er' rip. If you are anything like me, you will find yourself able to push harder in the later stages when you don't require as much fuel and timing of gels etc.

Thanks to almost all of you so far. Much appreciated. A few more bits of info in response to some of the things mentioned so far:

- HR: I learned my lesson on this one from my second marathon. I have a max of 192. Last year I hit 170 within the first 10k… disaster. Yesterday I climbed slowly from 148 at 1km to 160 at halfway, peaking at 167 at KM30 just before blowing up. I had planned to do keep the HR roughly below 165 until 30km and then give it everything - everything was going nicely, until it wasn’t.

- Milage/long runs: my base going into the block was around 60-70km. I’m going to shoot for 100km next time around. On long runs, I feel like I did enough of them and with enough MP but perhaps not enough of them really long and slow early in the block - I had planned to but was taken out by COVID for two weeks around 6 weeks into the plan. As mentioned earlier, I also think I needed to do some of the MP work as long continuous and not as long intervals.

- Carb loading/taper: honestly I feel like I did enough here, got plenty of carbs in the days prior. I felt really good about 3-4 days before the race, flat on race day. As mentioned, the work week was also very stressful.

My inclination so far is (as if often the case) that I just need to run more miles and with more consistency, particularly in the base period prior to the cycle. Including more strength sessions and more continuous MP work in the plan itself.

Here’s a question for you all (if you have the time and patience): I have an entry for Valencia in 10 weeks - should I try to recover quickly and go again, or skip and do a full reset throughout the winter in prep for next year? And if you think I should race it, any recommendations for the next 10 weeks?

funny as I think you were referencing me making a thread about failing on a marathon. As I read the OP, I had to take a sec and make sure it wasn't an old thread I had started. haha

Did you convince yourself that you were in 3.15 shape? But you were really in 3.25 shape?

A few things jumped out at me in reading your post. The first is that taking Gels every 6K means you end up taking about 7 for the race. Unless you had stomach issues I don't think this is your real problem. I think 3 Gels in a marathon is more typical. More mileage is always better up to a point but 80K to 110K/week is enough for a 3:15 goal. I'm curious what your VO2 workouts look like - something like 8 x 800M slightly above 3 flat or 5 x 1600M in around 6:20 would be about right. I was a 2:30 - 2:40 guy back in the day and I'd run most of my longer runs fairly slow 7:30 - 8:00 pace for the really long runs but I would also try to do one 6 to 10 mile run weekly wicked at 5:50 to 6:10 pace. Did you taper enough?

No. Skip and do a full reset. Running 2 that quick will only make you more disappointed. You won't likely race well in the second one. I did marathons 6 weeks apart and under-performed the second one.

My times prior to my last marathon were nearly identical to yours. 39 and 1:26, low. I'm old (48, then) and untalented so I knew I'd need more mileage than most to improve. I did Pfitz 18/70, but boosted it by hitting weekly 20 milers even before the block started. I also, did a few 70+ miles weeks for a half marathon, prior to starting the block, and averaged 60 mpw in the off season.

I also started finishing my long runs at goal marathon pace from the start (last 5 miles, then 6 the next week, then 7 and so on...). I also, boosted the overall mileage to peak at 86 miles, with two 22-milers and a 24-miler.

Result: I didn't meet my goal of sub-3:00 but was able to run 3:05, which is 15 minutes under my age's BQ time.

My weaknesses: Age, lack of talent. Solution: More miles, longer long runs and more marathon pace work. Hoping to go sub-3:00 by age 50.

You'll get your 3:10. Try. Learn. Adjust. Improve.

I'm old and slow but I'd run as you've already got the entry. Get out and get moving as you feel better the end of this week. Do whatever you would be for training, minimal taper don't worry much about the carb load and just run the damn thing like a hard training run. Screw the time and just run for the hell of it.

You can always try one of the Pfitz multiple marathoning 10 week schedules to prepare for the race and see how it turns out.

I don't know if it's necessarily a good or bad decision to run in 10 weeks. You've developed fitness and have learned some things from your most recent attempt. It might be a good experience if you don't go in with unreasonable expectations.

what was your taper? my theory is that training is responsible for the first 18-20 miles and the taper for the last 6-8. if you are on the line without a full tank, you can't hold pace.

It worked for you but there are plenty of runners out there for whom lots of long runs at 22-24 miles, weekly, would invariably bring on injury and/or burnout, even if run slow. If you can crank out 22 and 24 milers at age 48 without injury/burnout, you are WAY outside the norm of runners out there.

I'm not saying that you are wrong, for you, but there are not many average Joe runners who would be well advised to crank that many long runs in a training cycle.

Sorry if you said but I didn't see this. For your longest easy pace long runs (none of the workout intervals you've indicated ... and an average across perhaps 3-5 of these), what was your average pace? I'm assuming you did at least a bit of progression in them, so what was the low end, and what was the high end?

In case it matters, when I was around 50, I did sub-3:10 at a little over your weekly mileage (kilometerage?) and a little bit under, and I think the only way I could've gotten sub-40 for 10K or sub-1:28 for HM at that time would have been with an extended cycle tailored to that distance range.