How To Survive Your First Marathon
When you cross the finish line, it will all be worth it.
Marathon season is underway and over the next month or so, many people will accomplish something they trained hard to complete since the spring.
Marathon season is an exciting time when many people will achieve a goal they once thought was a dream. Getting through that first marathon can be difficult, and how do you make it through it?
There’s no magic thing you can do to ensure you will make it through. Various factors can impact your race from weather, training, and how you care for yourself before the race. Some are within your control and some are out of your control. Focus on what is within your control, give it your best, and then you may have the opportunity to realize a dream.
Start Waking Up Early The Week Before
Sleep is an underrated performance enhancer. In a study with Current Sports Medicine Reports, inadequate sleep can impair endurance performance. This makes sense since lack of sleep can impact your blood glucose levels.
Setting your circadian rhyme to wherever your marathon is will be an important part of running the race. Most races start at about 7:30 am, so the week before the race, you may need to start waking up at 5:00 am or earlier. It’s tempting to sleep in since you’re tapering down for your race and those morning runs aren’t as long as they used to be. Keep your wake-up time aligned with your race day wake-up time.
When I ran the Chicago Marathon for the first time, I lived in the suburbs and had to wake up at 4:00 am to catch the train to downtown.
I was used to sleeping in until about 7:00 am or 8:00 am. Waking up at 4:00 am was a shock to my body. I struggled to fall asleep the night before, and I think I ended up with about 5 hours of sleep. While I finished the race, the morning of the race could have been more enjoyable.
Plan Your Packet Pickup/Expo Trip
For big marathons like the Chicago Marathon, the expo is big. Picking up your packet will likely take several hours.
The expo for the Chicago Marathon takes place on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I would recommend going on Thursday or Friday if you can. Utilize Saturday to rest up and prepare your mind for the marathon.
Expos for big marathons like Chicago are a lot of fun. Thousands of people arrive at the same location, all with the same goal. You don’t get many opportunities to experience something like that. Excitement will be in the air.
Take your time and take it all in. Be grateful that you have the opportunity to run a marathon. You’re in the top 0.1% of the population from doing this. That’s something to celebrate, and don’t worry about other people’s times and how they’re doing. Run your race and be the best version of yourself.
Arrive Early & Warm Up
Arriving at the race early enough to get to your wave of the race may seem obvious, but the challenging part about it is staying warm.
Marathons like the Chicago Marathon let runners toss their warm-ups on the street and the city will collect them to donate to charity.
I recommend arriving at the race about an hour before the first waves take off. This will allow you some time to get a lay of the land and where you need to go.
While you’re waiting at the corral, make sure that you warm up and stay warmed up. When your corral lines up, you may wait there for some time, and standing around makes it easy for your body to cool down. You may feel squished in with people waiting to take off but do your best to keep your body warm.
Stick To Your Target Pace
Sticking to your target pace can be a challenge. If you’re running your first marathon, the adrenaline will be pumping and when you take off from the gate, you feel superhuman.
This is a big mistake. Going out of the gate too fast can cost you dearly.
During my first marathon, I thought that I could maintain a 7:00/min-8:00/min mile pace the entire way. I did until about mile 10, then I started to slow down. I tried to keep up the pace but around mile 16, I started cramping and soon enough, all the muscles in my legs were cramping. While I hobbled to the finish line, it wasn’t the marathon experience that I had wished for.
Had I slowed down and stuck to my target pace in the beginning, this could have been mitigated.
Reframe Your Mindset
Around mile 18–20 of a marathon is where many runners hit “the wall.” The hardest part of overcoming this is the mind.
There are some tricks to preventing yourself from hitting the wall. One of them is to make sure your body is adequately fueled a week up to the race, and you’re fueling during the race as well. You don’t need to go crazy and carry 10 gels with you, but having a couple of on hand during the race and planning out when to consume them may help mitigate this.
If you’re still hitting the wall after all this, try to reframe your thinking.
Instead of thinking:
“I’ve run 18 miles, how am I going to finish?”
Reframe it to:
“I only have two 4 mile runs left.”
The shift in mindset can help you a lot more than you think it will. Your brain knows that you can easily run 4 miles. Make it to the next set of miles that you need to. Keep chunking it out until you get to the point where you know you will cross that finish line.
Have Fun
You’re running a marathon and that’s something to be celebrated! Remember that nothing great comes easy. All those hours training for this moment are finally coming to fruition. There will be times during the event that will be hard, but it will be worth it once you cross that finish line.
Training for your next race or are looking for more training tips? Check out Running Relentless for the training tips that you didn’t know that you needed.
Excellent suggestions for your first marathon! My only experience with a marathon, thus far, was at the conclusion of Ironman Florida last year, so it's a bit different...
But many of the same strategies apply. The tactic of "chunking" the races into manageable pieces is a useful skill.
(Instead of 6 miles left, you only have 2 5Ks left.)
Also, the value of pacing can't be understated, especially during an Ironman where it's likely you won't have put all three sports together in succession until race day.
We might think our "easy pace" is going to be a certain number until you've swam 2.4 miles and biked 112 miles before it. ;)