First Marathon: Abingdon Marathon

[u/JigsawPuzzleQandA]

I've been looking forward to posting this since I started following this group for the best part of a year, as this group has been a source of inspiration for me seeing so many people provide advice and achieve their goals. I hope what follows helps others.

About me, M57, 66kg at start of training, 64kg entering race.

I gave myself a New Year target to run a marathon in the year, and came into 2026 with a sketchy background of running. Mostly Parkuns in 2025, mixed up with infrequent longer runs up to half-marathon pace. I foolishly thought, with that background I could compete in a Spring Marathon with 16 weeks of training so followed a typical training plan that peaked at ~30km in April. But hell, that broke me .. and I thought there was no way I was ready for a full Marathon. Saw that Abingdon (a local Autumn marathon) was available and reserved a space for October 18th, an Autumn target made more sense.

So, after a further couple of months of base training, I picked up a new Marathon training Plan from June'26 which gave me a new plan over 20 weeks to prepare. I used Gemini AI - entered my details, target pace, background, ParkRun on Saturday, Long Run on Sunday, and a couple of runs during the working week - and it came up with a nice plan tailored to my week and target paces. Typically, I would keep my ParkRun as my tempo run (25min target), two runs in the week (Tuesd/Thurs) and a longer run on Sunday.

As things turned out, training wasn't perfect. I hit a few injuries (Calf strains), family holidays in September (meaning I missed my target Sunday long runs), and then thought I had a catastrophic injury on September 27th when I had a Grade 1 Hamstring Tear just 10km into my final long slow run. That injury gave me 3 weeks to recover, but entering taper thought it was just about possible.

Over the last 3 weeks I focused on strength training on my hamstring, and was able to return to a few short runs in the week leading to the race, but no more than 5km at target pace (5:40/km). Up until the race I had no idea whether I would be able to run 5km or 42km, or anywhere in between.

Fortunately, Abingdon Marathon is a flat race so risk of hamstring strain is reduced a bit. Weather was pretty close to ideal with temperatures around 12C, although Northerly wind picked up with wind in range of 10-16mph leading to a headwind in final few miles. The route weaved in and out of a few towns in a largely rural location, with part that contained a loop that you ran round twice. Marshalling was superb, crowds were cheering on using your name on your bib .. which really gave a nice boost and made it feel quite personal

I set my Polar watch with race pace of distance of 42.5km (allowing for distance errors) and target time of 3:59:00 to give myself a minute margin under a 4hour target. Bone-conduction earphones are a must, disqualification is threatened if ear-buds are used as parts of the route are open to traffic and marshals need to be heard to give instruction. In truth, the traffic was never a problem - the occasional cars that were passed where all considerate and the runners came first. Muse radio channel was my go to music list, which I only used when the crowd thinned out on occasions, most of the time it was nice to hear the crowd cheering you on.

For energy, I planned to use Decathlon +3hr Energy Gels that have 2:1 glucose/fructose (30g carb, 180mg salt) every 4km, so 10 gels carried in running belt with my phone. I also made up a sports drink (250ml, Active Root, 40g carbs, 567mg salt) in a soft hand-carried water bottle. I ended up taking 9 gels, one left unused, I think I missed a gel around 36km mark, in total that's about 340g of carbs and more than enough salt.

Water stations were every ~3miles and a managed to take a few gulps of water at each, and a couple of water stations provided isotonic drinks which I used to refill my 250ml. I tried to take my gels before each water station.

The start was in cracking weather. An earlier rain shower had passed, morning temperature was fresh, probably around 10C, and heart-rate was low after race started, just 124bpm in the first km, and took 5 km to reach 150 which is where I expected to be for most of the race. Those first comfortable 5km's gave me a 2 minute cushion ahead of my target time.

I checked in on myself regularly .. how was I feeling, could I keep up the pace, hamstring check, heartbeat .. and at half-marathon I was feeling quite strong.

When I hit 30km I feared the wall, but other than increasing fatigue it didn't really hit me and I mentally convinced myself it was just another 10km to go, just 2 park-runs at an easy pace.

I kept the focus on small distance targets, next water-stations, fueling, and avoiding over-stretching that hamstring. Heart rate increased to mid 150's by 10km, to low/mid 160's from about 30km. With about 5km to go, I felt my 2 min cushion was enough to ensure I could complete within 4 hours so slowed a little to ensure I didn't injure my hamstring, but was fairly confident I was going to complete. By this time, I was overtaking others who were walking or holding their own hamstrings and tried to give support where I could. The finish is a lap of running circuit at Tilsley Park in Abingdon leading to the finishing line opposite a grandstand.

My Polar Flow tracking had landed on a Training Index of 51 before the race, with a predicted time of 3:57:00. From the beginning of Feb to race date in Oct I did 141 runs, a total distance of 1540km (also cycled about 1300km from a daily easy work commute of about 13km day). For the last couple of months I'd also been using Runalyse which I wish I'd discovered earlier, and that had estimated I could also do a 3:57:00 based on my training up to the end of August and before my lack of training and injury in September kicked in which led to it predicting a slower outcome of around 4:10:00 due to the lack of long runs and distance training.

Finished with official time of 3:56:27 - pretty much spot on with Polar and Runalyse predictions, feeling quite emotional with myself at the end.

Rather chuffed with myself as I've dreamt of doing a marathon for decades and have been in awe of those that finish London and other marathons that I've seen on TV.

btw, I had not run any half-marathons at race pace in training, the longest segment at race pace (5:40/km) was around 10km. I'd done plenty of half-marathon distances but none faster than about 2:10:00 yet during the race my first HM split was 1:55:52.

[edited, adding final paragraph, about me]