Is A Sub 4 On The Cards?

The Manchester Marathon on Sunday 14th April 2024 would be my 13th Marathon. In the build up to the race I had completed a 15 week training block running an average 40 miles per week. However I had missed 8 days of running in weeks 10-11 due to a sore achilles so it was not exactly a perfect training block. I was really hoping that I could go under 4 hours in Manchester at the age of 66. There was one major doubt however in my mind, my longest run in training was just over 19 & a half miles. The next longest run was 17 & a half miles, with four 15 mile runs and a couple of half Marathons making up the longer distances. I had not reached the 20 mile mark in a training run and this was really bothering me - would my legs hold out for the remaining 6 or 7 miles? I had never had a DNF against my name in a Marathon and I was determined that Manchester wasn't going to be the first.
My race strategy was to run an average of 5.15 per kilometre and keep in my Zone 3 Hear Rate Zone of 134-142 bpm. Everything went according to plan until the 20 mile mark but then my Quads & Calves had bad muscle spasms and I was forced to walk about 3 times between mile 20-22. After that I was able to jog in the rest of the the distance and managed to cross the Marathon Finish line in a time of 3.55.54. This was the 7th time that I have ran sub 4 hours out of the 13 Marathons I have done. I strongly believe that I would have gone 3.45 had I not had the muscle spasms. It was a great day in Manchester!!






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