Sub-3 Hour Marathon: Replay with Coach Jacob

In this month's episode of the Next Level Running podcast we throw it back to one of our most popular episodes: What it takes to run a Sub 3-Hour Marathon! In this episode from July 202,  we talked about the periodization and key elements to running a Sub 3-Hour Marathon! We talked through the key sessions, long runs, and what a general plan might look like! 

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Transcript

Jacob Phillips 0:17

This is the Next Level Running Podcast brought to you by the expert coach at Run Doyle. Helping runners of all levels trust their goals on race day. By matching it with the perfect coach. Hello, and welcome back to this month's episode of the Next Level Running Podcast. I'm your host, Jacob Phillips, and this month we're actually going to do something different. We're going to throw it back to almost two years ago to one of our most popular episodes here at the Next Level Running Podcast, the sub three hour topic. A little over two years ago, I gave a presentation here on this podcast about how I coach clients to break three hours for the marathon. There's a lot of ways to do it. My way is not the only way, but I've coached a lot of runners to sub three hours in the marathon, and I've used this these principles to get there. And so with marathon season coming, look, we just had Chicago, New York's coming up, but we've got Houston in January, we've got Boston coming up, we've got London coming up, we Tokyo's coming up. Marathon season is coming. It kind of never ends, right? But I thought that this would be the perfect time to replay that for those who are looking uh to try to break that three-hour barrier. But look, if you're not trying to break three hours in the marathon, that's okay too, because I think the principles apply. Look, if you're trying to break 230 in the marathon, if you're trying to break four hours and 30 minutes in the marathon, I think the principles apply. And so uh we're gonna throw it back to this replay where I'm talking about breaking three hours of the marathon and how to train for that. And uh this is one of our most popular episodes ever on the Next Level Running Podcast. So we're gonna replay that for you here next month. Coach Sean and I will be back with a fresh new uh next level running podcast. But until then, I want to throw it back. This was July 2023, seems like a lifetime ago, um, where we just dove into how to break three hours for the marathon. So here it is. Hello, and welcome to this month's episode of the Next Level Running Podcast. I'm your host, Jacob Phillips, and this week I'll be the guest as well. This week I'm going to talk about uh what it takes to run a sub-three-hour marathon. Talk about the training that it involves and what that might look like. You know, we're we're getting through this summer, we're heading into the fall marathon season or the winter marathon season, and it's a perfect time to talk about what are those 16 to 20 weeks building into your marathon look like? You know, what can I do to make the jump from 302 or 307 or 305 to sub three hours this fall or winter? And so I'm gonna give you an outline on how I believe it should be done. There's lots of ways to do it, but I think this is a pretty safe and manageable way to get to that sub-three hour marathon. But before I jump in, I want to tell you last week or last month, sorry, we had a great conversation with Run Doyne expert coach Lindsay Flanagan. Right after we had that conversation, we found out that Coach Lindsay was selected to represent Team USA at the World Championships in Budapest this summer. She'll be running the marathon for Team USA, and we're super excited for Coach Lindsay. If you hadn't had a chance, go back and listen to last month's episode. I just thought it was a great talk about what she's done to make herself into one of the world's best marathoners. She talks about what it looked like to run 226 and then to run 224. And then we we really talked about what it looked like in between these marathon segments for her. We talked about strengthening your weaknesses, making yourself a faster, more efficient runner. I thought it was a great conversation. And we're super excited for Coach Lindsay as she gets ready to uh to race the world championships coming up in the next month or so. But again, tonight, today, we're gonna talk about sub-three-hour marathon training and what that looks like. And for me, you know, you probably need 16 to 20 weeks. And we're not gonna use, if it's 20 weeks, we're not gonna use all 20 weeks to be full-on 100% into marathon training. We would take some time to build up into that marathon training. Um, but I want to talk about bread and butter workouts. I want to talk about secondary workouts and what that means. I want to talk about like what a two-week pattern could look like for you, and then talk about that periodization uh of training from 16 or 20 weeks out to race day, and then really dive into what a taper might look like and and and really walk through, say, the last 10 to 20 days uh of of that marathon cycle. And so um jumping in, uh, we'll just go straight to the periodization and and uh and what those, what what say a 20-week schedule might look like. You know, I think with 20 weeks, you take maybe four weeks of that to build up your long runs and build up your mileage and and and do some introductory work, really just kind of having like a month-long base phase if you already haven't had that. You know, you don't want to just jump into 20-mile long runs or two-hour long runs without having built to that. And I think that first month, those first four weeks can really get you into that. Uh, using that each week to build up that long run, to start doing some, some, some quality work during the week, uh, so that you're not just jumping into workouts, and that could be in the form of fartlicks or hills or light tempo type work. Um then I think you get through that four weeks, and you probably have a good 14 weeks of where you can just dive in and be all about the marathon training. And so for me, I I think that looks like alternating weeks, so a two-week pattern of where one week you'll have what I call a specific marathon. So a marathon with some quality work in that, and we'll go over those workouts in a bit. Um, you'll alternate that specific long run or that quality long run um with an easier but longer continuous run. And so we'll talk about what that looks like. We also look to alternate what I call a secondary session each week with a specific session. So on week, you know, week one, you will do either a secondary session with week two, you'll do a specific session, and we'll talk about what that looks like. And so you've got four weeks of building, you've got 14 weeks of kind of really the heart of the marathon training, and then we'll say two weeks of taper. And really that taper is is interesting because uh it really it's like 10 to 20 days, kind of looking at, you know, the longest run you might do, that's probably gonna be about 20 weeks or 20 days out, but then maybe your last really hard specific session might be about 10 days out. And so the taper looks to be 10 to 20 days. Um, you're not gonna full-on taper from 20 days out, but but maybe that's the last big long run session you might have, and then 10 days out from the race. And so we're gonna we're gonna start first, I think, with um that two-week pattern and and talk about what that might look like. So you've had your four-week buildup, you've built your base, you've built your long runs. Uh, you know, maybe you've gotten up to where by the end of that month you're doing 16 to 18 miles for your long run. You're you're you're you've got a base, you're ready to start marathon training. And so then we kind of go into that 14-week period where we're gonna do uh a two-week pattern. And so the way that I like to set up our marathon weeks, uh, I like to go Monday as the start the starting day of the week is Monday. I like to start off every week with an easy run uh and strides. And and obviously, when we're talking volumes here, I think you probably need to be running uh 50 plus miles per week to attack a sub-three-hour marathon. And so with that, you're probably running, you know, six to eight miles for an easy day. And so Monday would probably be a six to eight mile easy run, followed by five to six times 20 seconds fast strides that probably start around your 5K effort or pace and get faster as you progress through them. Um Tuesday, I leave for the quality day. And so um again, on these two-week patterns, we're gonna alternate that Tuesday session. One week it's gonna be a specific marathon workout, and then the next week it's gonna be a secondary session. Um, and we'll we'll go to talk about what those look like in a second. I like Wednesday coming off of the quality session to be a medium long run. And in a medium long run, again, with those volumes of 50 to 50 miles plus per week, you're probably gonna do anything from from 10 to 14 miles on that, on that medium long run day. Now, if you're running much higher volumes, then obviously all of this would would adjust up for you uh, you know, with with the increased mileage that you're doing per week. But with that medium long run, I think it's I think it just it's a it's a great mental toughness practice. You're coming off of a of a pretty hard session on Tuesday, and now you've got to run a little bit longer, a little bit further. Um, and so I think it's just a great practice in cumulative fatigue. I think it's a great practice in just uh and just mentally being out there for for a long period of time after a hard day. We come back on Thursday, and Thursday is typically an easy run or a recovery day, uh cross-training day, kind of depending on your volume. Um, but again, if you're running probably 50 plus miles per week, you're probably running six to eight miles easy on those days. Friday, we typically will do another uh basically repeat Monday, six to eight miles easy with some strides. And again, um, you know, if you're running 70, 80 plus miles per week, your your daily runs will probably be a little longer. You might even get into this uh where you're running twice a day some days. Um, but we're just kind of looking at just the general pattern of the week. And so easy uh Friday is gonna be an easy day with strides. And then on Saturday, we're gonna Saturday, we're gonna alternate between this uh either specific quality long run or this easier, continuous, uh longer long run, right? And so that will be your 20 milers, your 22 miles, maybe even getting up to 24 miles, uh, continuous, easy. And on those long run days, whether it's the quality long run or the easy long run, you're gonna want to practice your race day hydration, nutrition. I think that's a great place to practice that. You know, you're gonna be on your feet for a long time. And so getting the body used to handling, uh, taking in fluids or or taking in gels and those sorts of things. And then on uh Sunday would typically be uh an easy run or a rest day uh or a cross-training day, depending on on what it is that you need in that in that week. And so that's our two-week pattern. We would be doing that for um those 14 weeks uh where you're alternating those weeks. And so let's let's jump in and talk about some specific uh sessions, some some bread and butter sessions, uh, which is what we would be doing every other Tuesday. Um and we're not talking about long runs here. We'll get to the long runs here in a second, but but when we're talking about that specific bread and butter marathon session on Tuesday, that quality session on Tuesday, um, I like a couple different things. One, I like just the marathon paced tempo run. And so you might start at six miles at marathon pace and every few weeks be building that up to 10 or maybe even 12 miles at marathon pace. Um, you know, that that continuous practice at that marathon rhythm, I think is so important. You know, you you're you're you're gonna go out there and try to run 26.2 miles, probably at a very even effort or a negative split effort. And that's something that you've got to practice. And one of the ways that you can practice that is with a marathon-paced tempo run. You know, you would you would probably warm up for a couple miles, go through some good drills, do some good strides to make sure your body's fully warmed up, and then run six miles, eight miles, 10 miles continuous in the same sort of way that you would want to run your marathon race. And I think another kind of an extra note on that is if you could practice at that pace taking your fluids or taking your nutrition, um, that's an even, that's an even bigger, bigger bang for your buck there. Right. And so those marathon pace tempos are super important. I love the fact that they're continuous. You know, you can't fake it. You're gonna be out there for uh if we're trying to run a sub-three hour marathon, let's say that's 650 pace, you know, six miles at that, you're you're talking about 40 minutes of running, right? And so 40 minutes of continuous running at that marathon pace, locked in, finding that rhythm and making that rhythm comfortable, making it to where you're efficient at that rhythm, uh, practicing, taking that the nutrition, the fluids, great session there. Um, and so like I like to build up from six uh, you know, the as the first one, then a couple weeks later getting to eight miles, and then, you know, a few weeks after that getting to 10 miles, and then ultimately doing two by six miles uh with a mile float as kind of like the peak uh marathon-paced session that we would do on those on those Tuesdays. Now, uh outside of those continuous marathon-paced tempo runs, I love the idea of the alternation. So doing like uh one K at just slower than marathon pace, and then another K at faster than marathon pace, and and kind of uh ended, and you end up averaging about marathon pace, but it's the hard way. Um and I just love the the one, I love how tough that session is. I think you walk away with a with a real respect, respect for marathon pace afterwards. But if you're doing a 20K continuous run and you're and you're alternating, you know, a hard K with an easier K, um, your body is learning to recover at at not so slow of a pace or not so easy of a pace. Um, and your body is is learning to run faster. It's just a it's just a tremendous session, you know. And if you go and you look at um, you know, one of the one of the key sessions that the Africans will do in the marathon, and they have, you know, the East Africans have just crushed the marathon uh and just have made it a whole new ball game. You know, this is one of the sessions that they'll typically do. They'll do a 20K continuous run where they're, you know, probably running, you know, five to ten seconds, you know, faster than marathon pace, and then, you know, a little slower than marathon pace on the alternating Ks and ended up having a great 20 mile or 20K continuous run there. So I love including that as a as a specific session. Um, and so so typically I think if you're if you're doing a two-week alternations of um, you know, a specific session and a secondary session, I think, you know, four of those sessions are gonna be of the specific session. So you're getting seven specific sessions. So four of those are gonna be six miles, eight miles, ten miles, continuous at marathon pace. And then you you finish up with the two by six miles with the mile float. And so there's four sessions, and so you have three other sessions. And I think alternating uh or doing the 20K alternations where you're going hard K, easy K, I think that's a great uh session to repeat and to practice as you move along through those those seven weeks where you're hitting a specific session. Now, for the secondary workouts, the workouts that you would be doing every other week, um, I like to work through a couple different things. One, um, I just say speed farlicks, but but running, uh, especially if you're coming off of a uh of a really hard long run, um, I think doing something like, you know, two sets of eight or two sets of ten times a minute on, minute off. So minute hard, minute easy, uh taking three or four minutes between the sets and then repeating that. And you run that probably uh between, you know, starting at 10K effort for those minute on and working down to to 5K effort over the second set. One, I think it's just good to get the legs turning back over. But two, since it's a fart, like you can you can run by feel and not necessarily by pace. You know, you can really, really focus on a strong effort, turning the legs over. It's not a long duration. It's only a minute, you know, and it shouldn't, it shouldn't be this workout where you feel like you're going all out. It should almost just get the legs back under you coming off of uh a really hard long run the Saturday before. So I like speed fartlicks. We try to keep one of those in there every, every every so often. Keep the legs turning over, uh, a good bounce back session from from a hard long run. Uh we also, instead of doing the six, eight, 10 mile continuous at marathon pace, we do three, four, five miles continuous at like half marathon pace, right? So you do a shorter, faster tempo. Um, and so the the uh and it's not fast enough where it's kind of uh an all-out type of session. It's still very much tempo effort, it's still very much, you know, uh half marathon type of effort, um, but it's shorter, and so the volume isn't as big, and so it doesn't take as long to recover from as maybe a marathon-paced tempo run might be. And so um we we try to insert those every so often. Uh, and then we do tempo repetitions, and so that's depending on the amount of volume that you're running, we're talking 10 to 15k worth of work, and you're probably starting around half marathon pace and getting a little faster or finishing a little faster. And and those workouts are fun because um they're challenging, but there's rest. And so, you know, that could be something as simple as six times a mile starting at you know half marathon pace and and cutting down, or or even something longer than that. But just just getting in that faster paced, not marathon pace, faster pace work with some rest, keeps the keeps the body efficient, keeps the keeps the turnover in there. Um, I think that's super important. And remember, you're coming off of both of the sessions, whether it's a specific marathon-paced session or um a faster, shorter session, you're coming off of that and going into that medium longer in the next day, which I think those back-to-back days are a huge benefit for building fitness and and honestly building some mental toughness, some physical toughness for the marathon, because the marathon, uh, as we know, is super tough. Um, and then let's look at the at the long runs that we're gonna be alternating through. And so I like to alternate through um so some specific long runs or some quality long runs with just the easier, more continuous long run. And so the one I always start with is alt miles. And so, you know, you can run uh 18 to 20 miles where you're you know, you're gonna run probably three to five miles pretty easy and then start alternating uh marathon pace for a mile, and then trying to be, you know, on the easy mile, try to be 30 to 45 seconds slower and not any slower than that. So um, so if you're trying to run 650 pace for the marathon, you would run, you know, say the all the uh the odd miles in this alt mile long run. You'd run the odd miles at at 650 pace, you know, marathon pace, goal marathon pace. And then the even miles, you would try to run, you know, right around uh 730 pace or faster. And so you're you're fast, slow, fast, slow, fast, slow for the for the duration of the long run. So you'd run three to five miles easy and then hop into uh, you know, where you're alternating marathon pace and 30 to 45 seconds a mile slower. And then that would build into a long run where we incorporate um like kind of like a cut-down ladder. So we would, and we would just try to dial in at marathon pace, but we would do um four mile, three mile, two mile, one mile um at marathon pace with the last mile, probably around half marathon pace with a half mile uh easy float in there, separating those repetitions. So the four mile rep, the three mile rep, the two mile rep, the one mile rep. And it's really just a great practice of again, of just building that volume of marathon or faster than marathon pace work that you're doing within a long run. And so, you know, uh you're you're looking at probably 12 miles of continuous running with the half mile floats in there, and you'll do a longer warm-up and a cooldown, and you'll probably get 18 to 22 miles on the day there. And then I progress that typically to um a 22-mile long run where we're gonna go maybe 16 miles easy, four miles at marathon, goal marathon pace, and then a two-mile cooldown. And then that specific long run will progress to one where we would probably do a two or three mile warm-up with a two or three mile cooldown. But in between there, we would do four miles at marathon pace, uh 10 miles at about 15 to 30 seconds a mile slower than marathon pace, and then four miles at marathon pace. And we would that wouldn't be continuous, that would be broken up. You would do a two or three mile warm-up, you would go through good drills, you know, good form drills, you'd do a couple of strides, then you run the four miles in your racing shoes. You would probably change back into your trainers, do the 10 miles steady, and then change back into your racing shoes for the four miles uh at marathon pace, and then you'd cool down. You wouldn't, we would, I usually kind of give a two to three minute time limit between all the segments. You don't want to, you know, run four miles at marathon pace, take 10 to 20 minutes rest, then run 10 miles. We want to keep it the keep the rest relatively short there, you know, two to three minutes on each end. And then we would probably repeat back to that uh 16 easy, four tempo, two easy uh long run, just because I think that is just such a great practice in making sure the body understands what we're gonna be asking it to do with some fatigue in the legs. Uh and then the the kind of the the goal specific long run that I I try to do. Probably about three to four weeks out from race day. And to me, this is the kicker. This is the one that really typically shows us what we can run on race day. We do a 10 mile easy. We take two to three minute rest to change into our shoes, our racing shoes. And then we do 10 miles at goal pace or goal effort. And usually that 10 mile segment will predict within two to three segments a mile, as long as the weather's good, the effort was good, of what you can run on race day. And then we would do a two-mile cooldown. So it's a 22-mile day, but I'm telling you, that's nine times out of 10, that's going to predict what you're going to be able to run on race day. And so that's the kind of the workout we're trying to build up to. That's really the hardest session, I think, that we do throughout the entire buildup. And then we would start, in terms of the long runs and the quality of long runs, kind of tapering that down. Now, we're alternating those long runs with just longer runs that are continuous. And so, like what I try to do is you start your first longer continuous run. You want to make sure you've got a 20-mile run before you've done any sort of quality long runs, right? And so we go 20 miles, and then we might do the alt miles. And then the week after that, we're either going to go 20 or 22 miles easy. And then we'll come into that workout, that four, three, two, one mile cutdown long run. And then we'll come back and we'll go 22 to 24 miles. And I really try to get uh multiple 22 or 24 mile long runs depending on your experience, depending on your volumes, uh, you know, your weekly volumes. I try to get a couple of those in. And we really want that last, you know, either 22 or 24 mile or to be about 20 we or 20 days out from goal race day. Okay. And so we we are alternating these 20, 22, 24 mile easy runs, easier long runs with the specific long runs in there. And again, you're wanting to try, you probably want to do the the the 10, 10, 2 long run. So that very specific, that kind of goal long run that we're really trying to get done in there. We probably want to do that about 28 days before, uh, you know, 27 to 28 days before goal race day. And then you want to probably do your your whatever your max long run, so 22, 23, 24 miles, you probably want to do that one 20 days out, 21 days out from goal race day. Okay. And so those are the workouts, those are the long runs and the workouts that will will kind of, you know, rotate through. And obviously every person's situation might be a little different. I've got some uh athletes that that everything is done in kilometers. And so, you know, we might do 16K easy, 16K, you know, uh faster, and then 3K, you know, relaxed or whatever. It's the same workout, right? Just kind of um in in different measurement, I guess, metric system versus uh versus the imperial system. But um, but those are sort of the the the bread and butter workouts that will alternate with the kind of the secondary workouts. I'll also say this in terms of when we're talking secondary workouts, I mentioned the medium long run and how important I think that is is to be in there um following that that specific session or that secondary session. Also, I I think not neglecting strides. If you notice in the pattern that I talked about, we put strides uh the day before uh the Tuesday quality session. The strides, one, it's a great practice in running fast. It's faster than race pace, it's faster than anything that we're gonna do in training. Um, but it but I think just uh having the cues during those strides of good form, good posture, uh I think it really sets you up well to run at a good, efficient rhythm the next day. And so if you'll see, we have strides scheduled uh on the Monday before the quality session on Tuesday, and then we have them scheduled on the Friday before the long run on Saturday. I think those are great prep um to have that rhythm uh and to be efficient uh for the next day when we're asking you to to be really, really good the next day. So um next thing I wanted to talk about with just this sub three-hour marathon training is you know, we're we're coming into the taper and we're talking about the taper, and and you know, you have these 14, you know, uh weeks that are kind of the heart of the marathon training, and then you now we're now we're two weeks out. But the taper's kind of weird, right? Because we talked about how we want to do the marathon or the the long runs, right? 27 to 28 days out, you want that really that test effort long run, that 10 mile easy, 10 mile uh at goal effort, goal pace, and then the two mile cooldown. And then we talked about how 20 to 21 days out, you want that last kind of max long run, 22 or 24 miles easy. And so really the the the long run taper is starting about 20 days out. But we're gonna stay in rhythm up until about 10 days out. And you know, when you're 10 days out, you really want to have your last kind of hard specific session. And for me, that's that two by six mile workout where you run six miles at marathon pace, you do a mile float, so you're probably, you know, only 30 to 45 seconds a mile slower than marathon pace, and then you're gonna do another six miles at marathon pace. And so that's that's 13 miles continuous that you're you're pretty much running at at marathon pace. Having that 10 days out that gives you 10 days to sort of recover from that session. Um but really it's kind of the last, you know, physiologically, it's kind of the last little window of time that you're really gonna see a big boost in your fitness. And so the taper is about 10 to 20 days out. I want to talk about what those 10 days look like. Um you know, we're we're we're at 10 days out, so 11 days really from so the the 11th day from the race, um, we're gonna do you know that last kind of specific session. We're gonna do that two by six miles with a mile float, and then we're gonna do uh two days of easy running. So you're gonna do you know your typical uh six to eight miles easy, then you're gonna do your typical six to eight miles easy with strides. And then instead of doing a a real long run, we're gonna do 10 to 12 miles with the last three miles at marathon pace. And so that ends up being a pretty relaxed uh session when we've been doing 18 to 22 miles with some quality in it for 14 weeks. And so now we're about a week out. You've done your last session, you're doing 10 to 12 miles with three miles at marathon pace. You're gonna run a couple easy days, and then about four to five days before the race, we're gonna just run a very simple two to three miles at marathon pace. So very relaxed. It's just basically a rhythm session, and then we're gonna run easy with some strides into race day. So, so you're gonna go uh quality session on say day 11. Day 10, we're gonna go easy. Day nine, we're gonna go easy with strides. Day eight, we're going 10 to 12 miles with the last three miles at marathon pace. Day seven, easy. Day six, easy with strides, day five, uh, two to three miles, you know, an easy run with two to three miles at marathon pace mixed in there. Day four, easy. Day two, easy with strides, day one, easy, and then race day, day zero, that's race day. And that's when we're going to be prepared to break three hours in the marathon, right? That training outline that I just gave you there, the the four weeks of just building your volume, getting your long run up, introducing yourself to some light fartlick work or some introductory work before you jump into the heart of the marathon training, which is those that 14 weeks where you're alternating uh, you know, a specific session with a secondary session, you're alternating a specific long run with a kind of a max continuous long run. Um, and then you've got that two-week taper. That's 20 weeks to lead you to a sub-three hour marathon. Now, those workouts themselves, that pattern itself won't take you to sub-three hours, right? Like to get to sub-three hours, you know, there's there's a combination of things that you've got to do within a great training program. The first one is you've got to establish some major consistency. I think if you if you look back over your 20 weeks and you say, man, like, you know, I didn't have to take extra recovery days because I went too hard. You know, I was able to get in everything that was assigned. I was able to stack week on top of week on top of week. You know, at the end of the day, consistency is key, right? And and I think that's the first thing you've got to have. You've got to have good, consistent, repeatable training. You know, these marathon sessions that you're doing on Tuesday, they shouldn't take you out to where you can't run the medium long run on Wednesday, right? And they shouldn't be so hard that you're not ready to go again on Saturday when we're asking you to do the big long run. And so making sure that your your training is consistent and that your training is repeatable, right? You're running the right effort, the right pace, et cetera. Uh, the next thing you're gonna need, you're gonna need a, you're gonna need a great nutrition and fueling and hydration plan for the marathon race day. And you're gonna need to practice that throughout this whole buildup. You know, I think really those that heart of training, those 14 weeks, you've really got to dial in during those 14 weeks and make sure that on those bread and butter workouts and on those long runs, you're really practicing your nutrition and your fluid plan uh for a race day. You don't want to get to race day and think, well, I'll figure it out. We're trying to go to a place that you've never been in terms of your performance. And so you've got to make sure that you're prepared, right? Uh and I so so making sure you've got a great nutrition, you've got a great hydration plan for prepared for you on race day. And and again, that's probably an experiment of one, but a but a great rule of thumb is every 35 to 45 minutes, you should be taking something. And and it shouldn't start 35 to 45 minutes into the race, it should start before the race, right? And so you got to make sure that you're standing on that starting line, not empty. You know, your carbohydrates are good, your your hydration is good, and then you can keep that going throughout the race. I think that I think the next thing um outside of consistent, repeatable training and a great nutrition hydration plan for race day that's been practiced, um, uh you you're gonna need some belief. You know, I was talking with a client uh this month about um, you know, we've got big goals at CIM in December. And it's like, man, that's kind of scary. And it's like, well, you know what? If it doesn't scare you, you're probably not looking for improvement. And so it's it's gonna take a big belief that you're gonna do this. I think it's gonna take a big belief in the training that you're doing and the pacing that you're trying to to get to um to be able to do that. You know, I I tell my college team all the time, greatness will never surprise you. You've got to prepare for it. And that takes some belief. And so I think between consistency and belief, boy, those are two powerful things. And with good preparation and with good plan, uh, why can't you do it? Right. And so consistency, repeatable training, uh, great hydration and nutrition plan, really big belief in what you're trying to do. And then making sure you've got a great pacing strategy for race day. You know, most great marathons are done with an even split or a negative split. And so making sure that you are practicing within those specific sessions the way that you want to race. You know, if you're going out and you're you're hitting your six or eight or 10 mile marathon pace tempo run at marathon pace, but that was, you know, starting out the first half of that run 20 seconds faster and then the last half 20 seconds slower, that's probably not gonna set you up to run 26.2 miles uh very well, right? And we're probably not gonna hit our goal. And so making sure that you've got a great pacing strategy, and that's something that you've practiced within that consistent and repeatable training program that you've had. Preparation is key, making sure that we are prepared for what's coming. Now, I didn't mention, you know, course or weather, um, but I think that if you're trying to go where you've never been, you need to pick a great course that is known for uh fast times and fast conditions. You know, uh uh, you know, setting yourself up to run a very hilly marathon or a very hot and humid marathon and trying to PR by eight to ten minutes, that's hard to do. It's it's possible, but it's hard to do. But making sure you set yourself up with a good course, uh, with good conditions, you know, as much as you can control, uh, that's another part that plays into this. I also think, you know, and you can go back to last month's uh episode where Coach Lindsay talked about training for the different terrain for marathons, you know, running a flat, fast marathon uh is a different skill set than running uh maybe one that is either downhill or one that rolls or one that's hilly, right? And so making sure that you prepare for the course. You know, if you're gonna run, you know, when we talk about training for the Boston Marathon, you know, you're preparing for the course as much as you are the distance, right? And I think if you're running uh, you know, maybe CIM in in December or Houston in January, you don't have to so much as prepare for the course. Those are usually uh flat, faster, cool weather marathons. But but Boston or New York City, those are different, right? New York City, the weather is typically good. It wasn't so great this last year, but the weather's typically good, but the course is hilly and you're you're going over some bridges and you're gonna have some downhills and some uphills and some undulating terrain. And so making sure you prepare for that. The same with Boston. You know, we had several Run Doy and clients that ran really well in Boston, um, but you had to prepare for the course. There was a lot of hill work done, uphill and downhill, right? And so making sure that you're preparing for the course. Um but at the end of the day, consistent, repeatable training, having a great hydration and nutrition program in place for race day and practicing that throughout the training program, having a belief in what you're gonna be doing, uh, having a belief in that I can hit this pace and I can do this. Uh yeah, and then making sure that you've got a great pacing strategy and that you've practiced that. I think those are key. I think uh, you know, trying to find someone to go alongside you in that journey, trying to find a coach that can that can help build this training program, give you, give you really good details and help you find that pacing and that racing strategy and that nutrition strategy is is always a plus. But uh yeah, that's the talk tonight. That's our episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you're able to walk out of this episode, fired up about your next attempt at a sub-three-hour marathon. And hey, maybe your goal is not to break three hours for the marathon. Maybe you're saying, Well, I just want to run one. But I believe that that the human body is is is limitless, potential is limitless. You know, we can get out there, we can do some great things. And so maybe right now you're not aspiring for that sub-three hour, or maybe you're sitting there saying, like, well, I'm trying to break 230, or I'm trying to qualify for the trials. I think these principles can be applied for just about any level, right? Uh, because the principles that we're we're talking about, I talked about some bread and butter workouts and some specific workouts, but the principles that we're talking about is that consistent, repeatable training program. We're talking about that great hydration and nutrition uh, you know, uh strategy that you're gonna have on race day and practicing that. We're talking about that belief in what you're doing and then having a great racing strategy. So please join us uh next month. Um, I think we're gonna be talking about some cross-country training. So we're gonna go go off the roads and we're gonna go into some cross-country talks. So we're gonna talk about that next month uh with a special uh guest expert coach from Run Doyan. Check out the show notes. Um, we're gonna have uh the link to the next level uh running Facebook community. We've we're gonna have the link to uh the Run Doyan Instagram account. We'd love for you to follow us there for any of our live events. And honestly, we just love promoting our clients. And so seeing what our clients are doing, maybe get you inspired to join us uh in your next goal and trying to crush your next goal. Um I'll also have my contact info below if you want to if you want to connect. Uh, if you're looking for a coach to get you that sub three hour marathon, I'd love to connect with you there. But other than that, you know, thanks so much. I appreciate uh you sitting here for the conversation today. Hope you're able to take something from it. Reach out to me if you've got questions about our topic tonight. And until next time, have a great run. Thank you for joining us here on the Next Level Running Podcast. Your source for training advice from the expert coaches at Run Doyan. If you're ready to take your training and race to the next level, head over to Rundoyen.com and get matched to your ideal code, who will provide you with the highly customized online training you need for crushing your goals on the race.